The Language of Trees Read Online Free Page A

father strongly believed the words of his Seneca ancestors. That when a man left this lifetime without repenting for his sins, the Punisher would take him in his hands and turn him into ash. Then he’d spread him into earth to do everything all over again.
    Two years later, when Dr. Ben Shongo died in his sleep, they couldn’t find a thing wrong with him. Even though a man of his height was prone to heart trouble, they hadn’t found one medical irregularity. But even Grant knew about his father’s broken heart. And he still hasn’t forgiven himself for his cowardice, for not going into his father’s bedroom and trying to help way back then. Too afraid of what he might have seen.
    Coming back to Canandaigua is about making something new.
    When he actually thinks about it, the list is manageable. Repairing the phone can wait. There’s no one he wishes to talk to. But both the window and the linoleum that’s peeling up from the kitchen floor are another story.
    The wooden entryway is scuffed from hiking boots and could use a good sanding. Scattered embers from the fireplacehave singed the yellow shag carpeting. It’s not all a throwaway, though. The canary yellow walls are actually not as dismal as he’d remembered. Perhaps he’ll buy a watercolor from one of those galleries in town. Maybe one with autumn trees. He could even plant tomatoes if he wanted, the kind that grow so furiously and impatiently, they’ll split themselves open right on the vine.
    Thankfully, there’s work to be done. This is why he is about to walk to O’Connell’s Feed & Grain. It’s eight miles down the road but it’s the best place he knows for supplies. He has to get his mind off the tracks of coal footprints now zigzagging all across the room, leading right to the basement door that has suddenly been thrown open. The spirit of Luke Ellis will get what he wanted after all.

2
    O NE DAY OUT OF the year, the mayflies swarm Canandaigua Lake. Their lifespan of twenty-four hours is entirely consumed by the search for a mate. In that time, they are so frenzied, so drunk with love, that the faintest wind blows them into cobwebs and porch screens. Their sail-like wings stand perpendicular from their thin bodies as they tumble and collide, mating in the air. There are so many of them that they coat the docks, landing on everything in sight. After mating and just before dying, the females fly over the water, dropping thousands of eggs back into the lake, their children sinking to the muddy bottom.
    Grant pulls up his collar to keep the flies away. He takes off, running down East Lake Road to O’Connell’s Feed & Grain, halfway between the lake’s north and south ends. He can see that a hazy light has begun to spill through the downed leaves, turning the water into a smooth sheet of glass. It is just a matter of a few hours before the mayflies are in their glory. The swallows are already having a feast, darting back and forth an inch above the lustrous lake.
    Up on the road, the phone lines are down, but Grant’s noteven angry about the inconvenience or the mess. The storm has forced him to leave the cabin for the first time in three weeks. It’s time to set his eyes on another human being, if only to prove that one exists. He passes a row of identical small clapboards. Clarisse Mellon is one of the few people out. Kneeling in her garden, she waves a muddy-gloved hand. “The swarm’s coming! Tough day to be out!” she calls, holding up a very large smooth white stone. He waves, wondering whether she’ll actually wait until he is out of sight before she runs to a neighbor’s house to spread the news of his emergence. Still, the rest of the place is fairly quiet but for the birds. All the pets in the neighborhood have been brought inside because of the may-flies.
    The Feed & Grain is hedged in on either side by an eighty-foot fence of Northern red oak. Grant