In the beginning...

"Where is my tree?"

She had arrived. He'd expected her a couple days ago, but she was here. He heard the clerk mumble something. She was new and would be of no help. He rose to his feet, dusted off his hands, but had hardly taken two steps before he heard her ask again, "Do you have my tree? It's not much of a tree at the moment, but it's still mine."

His manager was in the middle of his initial attempt to get more information when he made it to the register area.

"I can take care of this Steve." He briefly caught the look of relief in his eye before he turned to the pint-sized, middle-aged cauldron of anger.

"My name is Tanner Griffin. I believe that we do have your tree, if you're talking about a rather sickly 8-foot scheffelara."

Relief doused her rage. In the embers of it she explained, "I'm Karen. I appreciate your taking on this project, and I really don't mind. It's just that he did it while I was gone and wouldn't explain, and I knew he'd thrown it out. It's been in his way for 22 years now. And now look, I'm going to start crying like a ten-year old. I can't believe this."

"Come see what I'm doing," he said, as though she were another everyday customer. He took her elbow, and when she didn't pull away, Tanner began the short trek back to his Nursery Nursery, as he liked to call it. Her plant was his primary project and took center stage.

She stood for a moment in shock when she looked at it. "I did almost kill it didn't I?"

"You may have. I can't be sure quite yet."

"I'm awful. I don't know what's the matter with me. As much as I love the thing, I couldn't find the time for it. Or maybe I couldn't find the place for it."

"It's a pretty impressive size, that's for sure."

"And wherever I put it, he didn't want it there. It's too big for the living room he said. Too dark in the office, too cramped in the bedroom. It finally landed in my son's room, and he won't open a blind to save his life or the plant's. Then it kept tipping over. I forgot to water it. It's disgraceful. Maybe you should just put it out of it's misery."

"Yet he brought it in here to me to doctor. I understand it has a history."

"Yes, it was under three feet when it was given to me by my workmates when I quit. We became stay-at-home tree and stay-at-home wife at the same time."

"And you've both grown through the years?"

"Obviously." She splayed a hand on either hip. "Quite obviously," she said again, dryly.

He chuckled. "And it's well traveled?"

"To Connecticut and back with a few near-death experiences on the way. The first year I had it, I put it outside in the spring and it got infested with spider mites. It didn't get treated too gently on the trek back here from the East Coast either. He tried to get me to give it to his mother because it liked her house. I couldn't. I'd rather kill it in my house. What is wrong with me?"

"It's a constant in your life. We enjoy having them. They ground us. Sounds like maybe you have too little space and too little time at the moment. But the plant shows many signs of good care over a long period of time, or it would have died long before now. You know the saying about that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger? It works for plants too."

"Let's hope it works for marriages, too. It's sort of symbolic in that area as well." She stopped and looked him square in the face as though she hadn't meant to say those words out loud.

"So what's your plan, then? For the tree." Her face was quite red when she turned her attention back to the sickly plant.

Tanner launched into the neutral territory of his diagnosis and treatment plan. All the time he watched her face. She had an infectious smile. Her questions were intelligent and out of the ordinary. When he finished, it was clear she understood the process, and that it would take a long time.

"Well, since you seem to be so bent on curing my baby, it would be mean of me to part you two now, I guess."

"The way I see it, while I'm working to bring it back to health, you can be working on a place for it at the same time. And in the meantime, I hope you'll come check on it's progress from time to time."

"Sure. I'd like that."

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What happens next? Hmmmm