Shades of Jade | Marlana Botnick Fireman
It was happening again. My son Max was at the top of the oak tree, his feet wrapped around a branch, fingers stretching toward the blue-gray sky to snatch a leaf.
“Please come down.” He was so young, small, even for a five year-old.
He shook his head. When he hopped from branch to branch, sometimes stuffing a large green leaf into his mouth, he never faltered, never fell. Max’s skin was glowing jade in the night; Max glowed from the inside out. I begged from the sunken shadows of the oak. “I’ll take you to the trampoline park?” Max tilted his head and jumped from the towering limb, landing like a cat at my feet.
Across the street there was a bar full of drinkers. I watched them from my porch. I didn’t know being a parent would be so lonely. They were always engaged in electric conversation, sometimes cracking the silence of the night open with their raucous laughter; other times conversing quietly in groups and sucking on cigarettes.
When school let out, I promised myself I wouldn’t bribe Max. I would be gentle and less protective of him, the sole survivor of twins I’d grown in my own womb. Made by science, twins for someone who wanted children and had no urge to marry.
My uterus glowed emerald through my soft, post-birth skin for days after I labored, and no one understood why.
* * *
After Max went back to bed, I watched the drinkers at the bar across the street and cried. Not padlocks nor rock climbs could keep Max, whose skin glowed shades of fern, from ascending to the tippy-tops of trees. In the past I would watch for a while before calling him. When Max thought he was alone, he moved with determined grace, a dance performed only among branches. I was too scared to say aloud that perhaps my child wasn’t human. At night, at least.
* * *
“Max,” I whispered. His long lashes fluttered. His jammies were buttoned up to his chin. “Should you be out there?” I gestured to the tree outside his window. He nodded. “You need it?”
“Yeah, I need it.” He closed his eyes like he was conversing with his intuition. “At night and in summer.” I looked at his Elmo wall calendar. Summer would begin her slow, humid haunt in a few days.
Max knew. He’d known the whole time that he was meant to be in the trees. “It feels like being thirsty.”
I kissed him, made him swear he knew how much I loved him. Max climbed, moved from one tree to the next until he diffused into night. He promised he would be back in time for kindergarten in the fall.
I closed the door to my empty house and went to join a group of drinkers. They were rapt with my story until I told them it was true. I shushed them and then called out:
“I love you, Max.” The drinkers got quiet.
And from a distance we heard his voice: “I love you back!”
More about the author:
Marlana Botnick Fireman (she/they) is a joyful queer and Jewish writer in New Orleans. She is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans. Marlana’s work can be found in Hey Alma, Reckon Review, The Hooghly Review, Sad Girl Diaries, and elsewhere. They serve as an Associate Fiction Editor for Bayou Magazine. Marlana was born and raised in central Ohio. When not reading or writing, Marlana can be found crafting with their partner or playing with their goofy dog, Dill. She can be found on Instagram: @firelightdisco