Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
My first thought as I get out of the car and walk toward the gigantic tree is how happy I am that there’s no entrance fee—I was going to pretend I lost my debit card if there was.
My second thought is that Angel Oak shouldn’t exist.
The massive oak defies logic with its sheer size and the fact it’s been growing for hundreds of years.
The branches stretch away from the Herculean trunk in at least a hundred feet in every direction—some so long and large they’re braced by manmade support structures—before they curve upward and reach for the sky.
It doesn’t look real. Doesn’t seem possible that one thing could bear so much weight.
In the thick hedge surrounding us, there are plenty of other oaks, but none compare to the one at hand.
It’s a total anomaly. And with the morning light painting the leaves, Spanish moss, and patches of small ferns clinging to the bark, stunning.
I see why it’s turned into a tourist destination and why Anson Burns would have wanted to bring his wife here.
Simply standing in the shade of it feels like a gift.
Nash falls into step next to me on the path. His eyes are bright, his hair looks like hands have been in it, and his retro-striped button-up has the nerve to fit perfectly.
“You avoiding me?”
“Avoiding you?” I echo. “Considering the fact I just picked you up and drove you to this steroid-injected tree, I’d say no.”
“So you not talking to me is just my imagination?”
It is not.
After being so overwhelmed by my life I wept like an emotional lightweight before secretly sleeping in his backyard, I needed distance. Physical distance isn’t an option, so I figured I’d try not talking to him. Other than a mumbled hello, it worked for twenty-six whole minutes.
“Thinking about today.” I focus on the arrows of the path.
“How was your night?” he asks.
“Fine.” And because I’m an idiot: “Yours?”
“Good,” he says easily. “Watched a baseball game.”
With Emma, I think morosely. Then I remember, Good for them!
“Jonathan loves baseball.” That is a lie. “The Jets.”
I make the mistake of looking at Nash, and it’s as if there’s a laugh waiting just behind his lips.
“The New York Jets?” he asks, brows high. “That’s football.”
His happy face: so punchable.
“He likes them too.”
Cap grunts as he hobbles, prosthetic foot kicking up clouds of dust with every step. At the first bench we come to, he drops into it like a sack of cement. “Might as well be climbing Kilimanjaro,” he mutters with a long sniff of his oxygen.
“Maybe if you got rid of Penny, you’d be able to breathe without hacking up a lung or needing a tank of oxygen.”
He defiantly pulls Penny out of his pocket and ignores the sign next to us that says NO SMOKING OR VAPING to take a long drag.
“Impressive, huh?” Nash says, drawing my attention to the widespread canopy surrounding us.
At the outstretched branches overhead, impressive might be too small a word.
It’s otherworldly. The canopy alone is bigger than the roof of my house.
Other than the base of the trunk that’s roped off to prevent anyone from getting too close, people roam freely around the tree and its spider-like branches.
“What do you think?” I ask. “Cap, what did you find here before?”
His bushy brows raise.
“Dad,” I correct, making him smile and Nash stifle a laugh.
Assholes.
“Well.” Cap clears his throat. “Nothing.”
“What?” That’s not the right answer. “Yesterday the plantation and today the tree—why bother coming back to either?”
He spins his cane as his eyes roam over the tree. “Refresh my memory.”
I drag my hands down my face and groan.
“What’d you do when you were looking?” Nash asks.
“Thought about digging but never bothered.” Cap takes another hit, wispy tendrils spilling out of his mouth as he talks.
“Been so many scientists and arborists and every other kind of -ist. Figured they would’ve found something if it was here.
Mostly just walked around and thought about it.
” He smiles. “Before I lost the leg, of course.”
I let out a frustrated breath. This man watched me cry my face off and is acting like this is no big deal. Like I’m not down to my last $17.32 and sleeping in a shed. Like I have all the time in the damn world. Even if he doesn’t know every detail, he knows enough.
“Let’s check the gift shop,” Nash says, gesturing to the small wooden building. “See what we see. If anything stands out.”
Leaving Cap on a bench once again, I follow Nash.
He guides me in with a hand on the small of my back.
Worse than him touching me is the fact that I notice.
The fact—briefly—I think of pushing my weight against it just to refamiliarize myself with what it feels like to have him holding me.
Before I can talk myself in or out of it, his hand is gone, and the decision is made.
Less than ten seconds in the store, I wilt.
Filled with T-shirts, packs of cornbread mix, and bad lighting, it’s a far cry from the gold mine I was hoping for.
The gift shop is a gift shop. I stop at a tower display of postcards I can’t afford and take one off the rack to give myself something to do.
If there’s nothing here and there was nothing yesterday, maybe there’s nothing anywhere. This whole thing might be a waste. The thought plays on a loop. This trip will be a waste, and I won’t fix any of my problems.
My mom won’t be able to have surgery.
I can’t pay Bennie’s tuition.
The store will close.
“You sending that to the dentist?” Nash asks, interrupting my mental nosedive.
I look at the postcard in my hands. “My mother, actually.”
He picks one up and studies the image on the front. “Maybe I’ll send her one too.”
It occurs to me he might. It also occurs to me that, no matter his motivation, for the last eight years he saw racks of postcards just like this one and thought of me long enough to buy one to send. Why?
“Your last card said you were ready to give me up.” I exchange one for another, not really looking at it. “Is that because—” I clear my throat, mindlessly grabbing postcard after postcard. “Are you, you know, serious?”
His eyebrows lift. “Serious?”
“You know.” My face heats and I make an exasperated sound. “You know what I mean, Nash.”
“Afraid I don’t, Rue.” His lips tug to one side, eyes dancing so wildly it’s like they’re part of a Broadway production. “You’re going to have to use big girl words and spell it all out for me.”
“You’re being an ass.” I blow at my bangs and roll my shoulders. “And you know what I mean.”
He takes the postcards from my hand—I’ve seemingly collected every option—and walks toward the register. “Can’t say that I do.”
“Fine,” I whisper as the cashier rings us up. “Emma. Is she a . . . person?” Just hours ago, I convinced myself I couldn’t care less if he’s with someone, but here I am, borderline obsessed with knowing.
“A person?” he mockingly whispers, handing money to the cashier. “Interesting word choice. That what you call your fiancé?”
When I huff, his smile widens.
“Actually I do.” Not. I snatch the cards from him and drop them into my purse, flustered while he keeps looking at me with all his Nashishness.
Silently provoking me. “And since you’re too childish to have this conversation, I’m going to assume give you up was Nash-speak for send the papers because you’re serious enough with her you .
. .” I want to scream. At myself. “Will tell me I’m wrong if I’m wrong.
But it’s also none of my business and if you’re happy that’s great for you. ”
He presses his lips together, squints at me, then leans in close.
Close enough it makes my breath catch and lips think he’s coming for them; he doesn’t.
He bypasses my face to bring his mouth to my ear.
He smells like pepper and cedarwood and a myriad of memories.
In a low voice, he says, “You’re wrong.”
He pulls back, looks at me for two long seconds, and with an easy whistle, strolls out of the store, leaving me confused and speechless.
Because what the actual hell does that even mean?
I’m wrong about her being a person?
Or them being serious?
Or being happy?
A couple and family exit ahead of me, and my eyes catch on a sign that says Climb and Get Fined as I wait.
Beneath it is a painting of Angel Oak with a rainbow arching into the center of it—entirely colored in shades of blinding neon—with rays of light bursting from its center.
While I’d bet money the artist was on psychedelics, it takes my mind off Nash and triggers a chain reaction of thoughts.
Rainbows lead to gold.
Gold shines bright.
The tree is shining.
My fingers tingle with how right this feels.
Nash is already next to Cap, Anson’s letter in hand when I get to them.
I take it from him, skimming until I get to the part about the tree.
there is an oak tree which locals say is hundreds of years old and spreads far and wide. it must be the strongest in the world. you will never believe it and need to touch every branch and crack of the bark just to know its real.
We’re in the right place, this much I know. Anson might as well have included a photograph with his description, but that painting shines a new light on it. Maybe we’re thinking about it all wrong.
“Anything in there?” Cap asks.
“Everything you’d expect in a tourist trap,” Nash answers. “T-shirts, and a mil—”
“What if it’s in the tree?” I blurt. “Where all the branches come together. I bet there are all kinds of holes and cracks. Maybe not gold in there, that would have been discovered by all the scientists who have studied it. But what if—if there’s .
. .” My thoughts jumble together as Nash and Cap look at me skeptically.
“My mom has an old oak in her yard—you remember it, Nash? That big one in the front?” He nods.
“My daughter loves to climb it, puts all kinds of weird things up there. Last summer, she got ahold of a pocketknife and—”