Tree of Life

Book II Chapter 04

TREE OF LIFE BOOK II

CHAPTER 04

“How much longer?” Nicole asked.

“Not much.”

Nicole peeked out the window. Her hand stole up absently to touch the locket on her neck.

Brian saw what she was doing and smiled. “You still wearing that thing?”

Nicole turned to the window. “It’s pretty. I like it.”

“It looks like a broken heart. It’s ugly.” He smiled.

Nicole spun on him. She frowned and pouted.

Brian was right. It did look like a broken heart. Even if it wasn’t broken, it was at least, not a whole heart. It was half of one, designed that way to fit and be joined with another half. Each half would open and store one part of a photograph. For most couples still lost in love, they would take a picture of themselves, cut it in two and then take the half that was the other person and put it inside their side of the locket, so they could moon over it whenever they were apart and missing each other. Ah…such was the unfathomable way of lovers…and the smart people who got filthy rich feeding off their lovesick whims and fancies.

Julian had given Nicole that locket. He gave it to her one day, hung it around her neck and it’s been around her neck ever since. That was in the golden years, when Nicole thought they could actually be something together, when even Julian was willing to give it a shot, when everything was good and shining and while they were still in university. That was before graduation, before the real world had intruded in upon their perfect lives, before Julian had begun to hear the voices of the planet calling out his name.

After medical school, Julian couldn’t decide what to do with himself, so for a few years, he found a wee little clinic on the seediest side of town and worked for the poor and homeless, mostly for free. Then he had found somehow, that a life like that wasn’t quite enough for him. He wanted to do more, for even more people. So then he joined Greenpeace. And for a while, he was happier. Ever since the Tree, he was always so hung up on how he could bring the most benefit to as many people as possible. He was still plagued by that very first question he had asked of the Tree, that he couldn’t tell whom he should be helping and whom he should not.

To Nicole, the answer had seemed obvious. You were only one person. You could only help so many people at a time. As any one person’s abilities were limited, you could only do the best you could and that should be just fine. Yet for Julian, this was not just fine. He was never satisfied with the group he was with and helping at the moment. So, in the end, he had left Greenpeace and joined the National Wildlife Federation. And then it was the World Wildlife Fund and then the Wilderness Society and then back to Greenpeace again. He kept moving from place to place, group to group, never staying in one spot for long. He never stayed because he never could. He never felt like he was doing enough. He always wanted to do more. He looked and he looked and he never quite found the niche that he felt he ought to have fit into, so he kept looking.

Meanwhile, the half a locket that hung around Nicole’s neck was still hanging there, and the other half, its mate, the half that it was supposed to fit into, was always hanging around somewhere else, far, far away.

~~~

Brian continued to stare out the window. “You know, I could buy you a different locket. A whole one.”

“What?” Nicole peered down at her nails and pretended she didn’t understand.

“You know what I’ve always wondered? All these years?” Brian leaned in a little closer. Their hair almost touched. “How come you never chose me?”