A Promise Is A Promise

No one knew how that tree got there.

Some said it was Will reincarnated. Others thought the widow on old Burns Road had planted it. All I knew was that, however, it got there, and whatever the reason, it didn’t mean any harm.

We must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time. I think we were closer to fifteen. That’s when Celia started hanging out with us boys. Celia was seventeen, and when her brother Will died the year before, she kind of found comfort in hanging out with us. Will was always defending us, sticking up for us, trying to protect us from the older kids, and when he died, there was a void we all felt. Especially his sister Celia.

Scotty showed up on my doorstep that night, begging that we meet him down at the pond. I thought he was crazy. The last time we were down at the pond, Jeremy fell through the ice and almost drowned. We all got spooked so bad that we vowed we would never go back. Yet here he was, asking. All I wanted was a quiet game of Nintendo, followed by some mindless schoolyard talking and eating insane amounts of pizza. That was the plan we made a few hours ago as we casually walked home from school. A boring night in, with my buddies. Yet, there was something urgent in Scotty’s eyes. He showed up, all messy and begging us to put our night of teen fun on hold because —as he put it —something monumental had happened.

“Gather the guys, and meet me at the shack, down by the pond.”

To put all this into context, the shack was my dad’s old ice fishing cabin. The guys and I had converted it to a clubhouse a few years ago. In the summer months, the shack sat in my backyard, but in the winter, dad would drive it out to the middle of the pond once it had frozen, and the boys and I would meet there every day after school. On weekends we would spend overnights looking up at the starts and making plans to get out of this town once we graduated. The pond and that shack were our escape from a city so small and set in its ways. Whenever one of us was feeling down, or our parents were acting like grown-ups, we’d send out the SOS and head to the pond.

Well, tonight, Scotty sent out the SOS.

As I remember it, we all looked blankly at each other when we approached the shack. Right there, growing right beside our shack, was the most prominent tree we had ever seen. Now it would not have been odd had the tree been there before, but this tree, no, this tree grew from the pit of the pond in the winter. It grew up through the roof and stretched to the sky. It wasn’t there yesterday nor any other day through that Summer.

If the appearance of this tree wasn’t odd enough, Celia’s behaviour was. There she was, sitting against the tree trunk, talking to it–whispering as though she was whispering to a friend. She was sharing stories and telling secrets.

As we approached her, we heard her laugh, and then she said it. The one statement that made us all think that she had lost the plot.

“Will, I missed you. Thanks for coming back.”

What the actual–that is what we all exhaled as I looked at Jeremy. Jeremy looked at Marco. Marco looked at me, and I looked at Scotty.

“Guys, she thinks the tree is…Will,” I whispered.

Now I don’t spook easy. None of us did. But that night, there was something about that pond, the way the moon reflected off the ice and Celia’s vacant stare that unsettled us.

As we approached Celia and the tree, she jumped up and came running over.

“He’s back. Will is back!” She yelled as she ran over to hug me.

I grabbed Celia, and in the softest voice with as much sincerity as I could muster, I whispered, “Wills dead Celi.”

“I know that, silly. His body is but not his spirit. He’s in the tree.”

Jeremy laughed.

Celia whipped her head around and glared at Jeremy. Then out of nowhere, a pear landed at our feet.

Celia laughed. I picked it up and looked at it.

“Sorry, Jeremy. I’m not mad. You just don’t understand. See.” Celia said and pointed at the pear. “Will is trying to prove it’s him.”

“Celia, what are you talking about?” Jeremy asked, confused.

Celia looked at us, looked at the tree, then said, “Will’s favourite fruit–pears. That’s how I know it’s him. How else do you explain a pear tree in the middle of a frozen pond in the middle of February? A tree bearing fruit. Seriously guys, look.”

Celia pointed at the tree. And I swear it, as God, the universe, the source, or whatever mighty spiritual power you believe in, Celia was right. There, all around the shack and hanging from perfectly green-leafed branches, were hundreds of pears. They scattered the roof and laid scattered on the ground.

“Will always loved pears. But that night, when Will’s car went over Tulane bridge, into this very pond, he had baskets of pears on the back seat. He had stopped at the side of the road on his way back home and bought momma baskets full of pears. She was going to make cobbler and jam and pie. Pear pie. “

Celia looked down at the frozen pond.

“She never did get those pears, but when Will makes a promise. He always delivers.”