I Tell the Class About My Childhood Memory of Tree Liz Abrams-Morley But maybe it wasn’t an evergreen at all. Maybe deciduous. Maybe I forget the aftermath of fall, the skeletal gray branches, the way, in January, the trunk stood at attention: naked, revealed. Maybe I crawled under only once. Maybe a dozen times on a single summer day. Is it still there, your tree? A third grader asks. After each retelling some third grader always wants to know: Could I go see it, Mrs. A-M? And because I can’t be sure even I could see it, have ever seen it, No, I say. I say Someone put up a building. I say it’s gone now. And then we all hang our heads in sorrow. We are, for a moment, silent recalling its dark green needles, its scent that said Christmas to a child in a not-so-Jewish home, the way, in midday, warm blue shadows freckled our twiggy legs, dappled the soft earth below its embracing branches.
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