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I'm afraid I have the flu and am pretty sick or I would be there with you.

Sincerely…

To: Franchise Tax Board:

Before I pay the amount supposedly due on this document, I am to be informed of the results of the Head of Household Tax audit which your people are performing at present. When the results of this particular issue are laid to rest, it may be that you will need to refund the $500.001 sent you.

Please pay attention to former correspondence, documents and information regarding my account… .

How to set coffee timer so that you will have coffee when you wake up:

1. Set timer to Off.

2. Set coffee machine to On.

3. Fill coffee machine with water.

4. Put filter in and coffee.

BE SURE TIMER IS SET TO OFF,

AND COFFEE MACHINE TO ON

Wake up and smell the coffee!

Portraits of Kufus and Buster / Photos by Stephen Digges

Summer, 1995

The last gift I happen to give Stan before he leaves is a plum tree that he planted in our yard in Amherst. It's a stunted little sapling that barely survives its first winter. But in the early summer, our divorce pending, there it is, putting out a few white blossoms.

I decide to pull the thing out of the ground. I want no reminders of our life together, a life too full of departures. The sad little tree with its sparse sprigs is testament to the emptiness both of us lived with through the eight years of our long-distance marriage.

Wearing big gloves, shovel in hand, I head for the tree one afternoon. I'm going to dig it up, blossoms and all, and toss it far back into the woods. At first I try simply pulling it out of the ground, grabbing the trunk with both hands, stripping as I do the few blossoms from the shoots. But it won't give.

I try again, this time heaving and shaking the trunk to loosen the roots. Then I pick up the shovel and begin banging it against the trunk, grab it again, and heave.

It's one of the first summer days, late June, most of the foliage out, the air alive with seed fluff and down, a day in which you sense the certainty of the green world. Memory for the stingy cold of the previous winter has almost disappeared, and there's an arrogance in you. You can be careless with the green.

I grab the trunk of the tree close to the ground and pull with all my strength, pull to feel the effort wholly, my weight pitted against it. I exert to the point of blood-rush blindness and deafness, groan and heave. I don't hear Stephen shouting until he's next to me.

“Mom! Stop! Mom! What are you doing!”

Stephen grabs my shoulders and I turn surprised and out of breath. It's Saturday. As usual, he slept late, and he appears now in boxer shorts, his hair sticking out at angles, his young face always younger upon waking.

“I'm getting rid of it,” I huff. “I don't want it in our yard.”

“It's just a tree!” he says, and as he speaks I witness my son's avocation, deep surprise at his mother who would pull a tree out of the ground in an attempt to even some score. He is ashamed of me, his beautiful blue eyes full of hurt; he seems to search past me to find some other woman inside my eyes, someone he can recognize and appeal to.

I let go of the tree and step away. Despite my efforts, it stands rooted, however stripped.

“Anyway,” I offer as I wipe my sweaty hair back from my face, “it won't give.”

As if to prove it for himself, Stephen reaches to it and gives the trunk a light tug.

“Ya,” he says. “I think it's okay.”

We stand silent a few moments looking at the tree, then at each other. Stephen breaks into a wide grin and begins to laugh.

“Mom,” he says. “What in the hell were you doing?”

“I was trying to get rid of this tree.”

“I know, but what were you doing?”

I'm silent. I don't know how to answer.

“Mom,” Stephen laughs as he puts his arms around me. “Never mind. It's just a tree.”

I hide my face, trying not to let Stephen see my tears.

“Aw, Mom,” Stephen comforts me. He laughs again as he hugs me, then picks me up and whirls me around.

“Come on back in, Mom,” he says as he sets me down.