Mari sat outside with her dad, watching him paint. "I see why you like to come out here," she said with a smile.
Tom looked over with a smile of his own. "Would you mind explaining it to your mother?"
I loved to watch my father paint. Or really, I loved to hear him talk while he painted. I learned a lot about my dad that way. He told me all sorts of things like how he got his first job delivering hay, and how he'd wished he'd finished college.
Then one day he surprised me.
"What's going on with you and, uh, Adrien Agreste?"
Tom turned to her with a knowing look as he stopped painting momentarily. Mari tried to fight her smile from growing too much.
"What do you mean?" She asked evasively. "Nothing."
"Oh, okay," Tom replied casually then returned to painting. "My mistake."
Mari couldn't let it go. "Why would you even think that?"
"No reason," Tom said, cleaning his brush and choosing another color to use. "Just that you..." he paused to shrug. "Talk about him all the time."
"I do?" Mari asked with a sheepish smile.
Tom looked at her and smiled, amused. "Mmm-hmm." He confirmed, then remained quiet for her to talk.
Mari looked down as she tried to find the words to say. "I don't know," she started then looked up but focused her eyes on the painting rather than watching her dad's reaction. "I guess it's something about his eyes. Or maybe his smile."
Tom nodded slightly. "But what about him?"
"What?" Mari asked, not understanding.
"You have to look at the whole landscape."
"What does that mean?"
Tom smiled gently. "A painting is more than the sum of its parts," he told her, then continued to add to his painting. "A cow by itself is just a cow. A meadow by itself if just grass, flowers. And the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light. But you put them all together and it can be magic."
I didn't really understand what he was saying until one afternoon when I was up in the sycamore tree. I was rescuing a kite.
Mari climbed the sycamore tree higher and higher, growing more and more cautious with every place she put her hands and feet. However, when the breeze hit her, she caught the smell of something wonderful that she hadn't experienced before. Then she started to notice the scene that unfolded before her once she was out of the thickest of leaves.
There was a field of green grass, stretched as far as she could see with trees here and there. There was a bit of industry on the far side, a farmer's barns. And the sky was so blue, with puffy white clouds scattered across. The scene, as well as the birdsong around her, took her breath away.
It was a long way up, higher than I'd ever been, and the higher I got, the more amazed I was by the view. I began to notice how wonderful the breeze smelled. Like sunshine and wild grass. I couldn't stop breathing it in, filling my lungs with the sweetest smell I'd ever known.
"Hey, you found my kite!"
Mari looked down just after she had reached the kite and removed it from the wedge in the branches it had been stuck on. It was Adrien, standing there on the ground under the tree looking up at her with a smile.
"Adrien, you should come up here," she told him, wanting to share the magnificent view with him. "It's so beautiful."
"I can't!" He called. "I sprained my, um... I have a rash!"
Mari rolled her eyes to herself, knowing he was just trying to make any excuse to not climb the tree. But her eyes focused once more on the view.
From that moment on, that became my spot. I could sit up there for hours, just looking out at the world. Some days the sunsets would be purple and pink, and some days they were a blazing orange, setting fire to the clouds on the horizon.
It was during one of those sunsets that my father's idea of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts moved from my head to my heart.
Some days I would get there extra early to watch the sunrise. One morning, I was making mental notes of how the streaks of light were cutting through the clouds, so I could tell my dad, when I heard a noise below.
Mari looked down from her spot in the tree and was instantly confused. There was a truck driving onto the grass near the base of the tree, and men were climbing out.
"Excuse me," she called down to them. "Excuse me! I'm sorry, but you can't park there. That's a bus stop!"
A couple of the men looked up and seemed to just notice she was there. It was confirmed when one spoke. "Hey, what are you doing up there?"
"You can't be up there," added another. "We're gonna take this thing down."
Mari looked up to the view once more, before looking down at them again. "The tree?" She asked, not understanding.
"Yeah," the second man told her. "Now come on down."
"But who told you," Mari argued, not believing that this was actually happening. "You could cut it down?"
"The owner," The first man answered, not amused by Mari's questions.
"Why?"
"Because he's gonna build a house, and this tree's in the way," he continued, exasperated. "So, come on, Girl, we got work to do."
"You can't cut it down," Mari pleaded. "You just can't."
"Listen, Girl," the first man continued, clearly his patience gone. "I'm this close to calling the police. You are trespassing and obstructing progress on a contracted job."
Mari noticed that while the man was speaking, Adrien and his cousin Felix were joining the other students that had gathered for the bus stop.
"Now, either you come down, or we're gonna cut you down."
"Go ahead," Mari challenged, the chainsaw in the man's hands doing nothing to sway her, not even when he started it up. "Cut me down! I'm not coming down. I'm never coming down!"
She looked up as the school bus arrived. In desperation, she called down to the one person she thought might help her. "Adrien! You guys, come up here with me!" Her hope sparked when she saw that Adrien was looking up at her and even took a step forward while all of the others were boarding the bus.
"They won't cut it down if we're all up here!"
When Adrien looked back at the others, her hope started to fall. "Adrien, please don't let them do this."
Still, they did nothing. He did nothing.
"Come on, you guys!"
Adrien was still just standing there.
"Adrien, please," She begged. "You don't have to come up this high, just a little ways."
To her immense disappointment, Adrien turned away and walked to the bus.
"Adrien, please!" She called, trying a little longer despite the inevitable. Her voice gave out into sobs. "Please..."
What happened after that was a blur. It seemed like the whole town was there, but still, I wouldn't move. Then my father showed up. He talked a fireman into letting him come up to where I was.
A long ladder was placed against the tree, and Mari watched uncomprehendingly as her dad climbed the ladder. He was tense at being so high up and worried about Mari.
"Sweetie," he said in a gently tone though he was on edge. "It's time to come down."
"Daddy," Mari pleaded. "Please don't let them do this."
"Sweetie..." Tom repeated, but Mari cut him off.
"Daddy, look," she told him then looked around her. "You can see everything. You can see the whole world from here."
"No view is worth my daughter's safety," he told her firmly, though he was sympathetic to her. He hated seeing his little girl so distressed. "Now, come on."
Mari shook her head as Tom reached out to her. "I can't."
"Marinette," Tom used her full first name. "It's time to come down now."
Mari knew now that it was hopeless, but she couldn't help but resist still. "Please, Daddy..."
Tom hesitated and looked at her with a loving sternness. "It's time."
Mari slowly looked up as her tears fell freely down her cheeks. Oh, how she would miss this place terribly. But she had to give in. Looking back at her dad, she leaned towards him and let her help her down the ladder.
And that was it. I must've cried for two weeks straight. Oh, sure, I went to school and did the best I could, but nothing seemed to matter.
"Mari?"
Mari snapped back into focus from her mind drifting off when her teacher called her name. "Huh?"
"Do you know the answer?"
"Uh," Mari quickly said the first thing that came to mind, not knowing the question. "The Peloponnesian War?"
"I'm sure that's the answer to something," her teacher said with a tired smile. "But I was looking for the area of a rhomboid." Her classmates laughed, but she didn't care.
Somehow, rhomboids and isosceles right triangles didn't seem so important.
I rode my bike so I wouldn't have to pass by the stump that used to be the earth's most magnificent sycamore tree. But no matter what I did, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Mari sat at her desk one day, staring ahead of her out the window with what had become a permanent frown, and she had her head propped up on one arm. When she heard a knock at her door, she turned just as her door opened. Her dad was there, holding something covered with a cloth.
"Are you okay?" He asked gently.
Mari turned her attention back to the window, her head returning to her fist to lean against. "It was just a tree."
"No," Tom argued. "It wasn't just a tree." As he walked closer to her desk, he regained Mari's attention, and with a smile he pulled the cloth away to reveal a painting of that sycamore tree.
Tears sprung to Mari's eyes all over again as she looked at it in awe, and a smile made its way to her face.
"I never want you to forget how you felt when you were up there," Tom told her.
Mari looked from the painting up to the smiling face of the painter. "Thanks, Dad," she said, rising from her chair to wrap her arms around his neck and give him a big hug, which he returned with a grin.
It was the first thing I saw every morning and the last thing I saw before I went to sleep. And once I could look at it without crying, I saw more than the tree and what being up there meant to me.
I saw the day that my view of things around me started changing. And I wondered, did I still feel the same things about Adrien?