Rooted

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 30/08/11

Marianna paced and stopped. She raised her head and then looked down, touching the hardened aerial roots that clutched the roman columns supporting her terrace pergola. “Oscar,” she yelled. “Oscar, come here!”

There was no answer. She walked back to the edge of the patio, which stopped short at a hedge and stone fence along the rear of her property. It was here that the roots had fractured the rough marble pavers, breaking through from below. They crawled in all directions, snaking and flowing shiny light brown along the patio surface and spiraling up supporting structures and walls.

Marianna kicked at one of them – a central chunk that looked like it had emerged first. “Oscar!” she shouted once more. Dogs barked at the sound of her voice. She felt too angry to be unnerved. Her husband still did not respond.

The middle-aged woman, in peach and yellow shorts and a matching flowery blouse, stalked back to the terrace, glancing up once again at the roots squeezing and gripping the pergola beams. She walked rapidly through the white French doors, into the huge family room. “Oscar, the tree’s growing again,” she called. “It came right back! We just cut it last week and it’s already almost to the house.” She found a telephone on a credenza by the door to the formal dining room. She punched in a number. While she waited for an answer, Marianna gazed around at the room nervously. From outside came the pumping rhythms of Timba from one of her neighbors’ poolside stereo systems.

“Hello, yeah, this is Marianna Fuentes. Can I speak with Daniel please.” She was once again put on hold. “Daniel, hi, this is Marianna from Key Biscayne. The Mediterranean on Redwood Lane. That tree is back … no, don’t tell me it’s not possible … those roots are back … yeah, the ficus … shattered my new pavers … I know it’s been only a week….” She listened to Daniel Coelho promise he’d stop by the next day; make time in the afternoon … even though it’s way out of my way to go out to the Key…. She ended the call, her fury rising. “Maybe I should take pictures,” she said to herself. “Oscar, where the hell are you?” she tried again.

Marianna walked briskly into the large, cherry-wood kitchen, her sandals flopping on the terazzo floors. As long as she stayed inside, and kept the spacious and luxurious interiors of the home in view, she felt better. Once she glimpsed the world outside the many French doors and double windows, her frustration began to heat into anger. The house had cost them a million and a half dollars. It was a two and a half story, yellow and white mansion with a terra cotta tile roof, five bedrooms, and built of the finest materials, but it was stuck on the original Mackle house lot of seventy-five-hundred square feet. There was no yard on the sides or back — the house bulged in the midst of the surrounding property like a fat woman trying to fit into size-eight jeans.

She decided to call the realtor again. She stood in the kitchen at the black-granite counter and turned her back to the kitchen window. She leaned against the counter edge while she waited for her agent to pick up. Eventually she got a garbled “Lisa Drury, can I help you?” Marianna nearly screamed, her words racing, “The tree roots are back. What the hell is this? You didn’t tell us about this when we bought the house,” she blurted.

“Hi Mrs. Fuentes, I’m with a client at the moment, can I call you back?” was the only response, and it sounded cheery and reassuring.

“Listen, you said there was a house here before this one. They tore it down. Why did they tear it down? Was there a tree in the back of the house before?”

“I’ll call you … let me get back to my office….”

“Forget it,” Marianna said, and ended the call. She threw the phone onto the counter; it clattered and slid a foot. “Oscar, where are you, what the hell are you doing?” she shouted again. Her husband was twenty years older than she was, in his seventies. He was supposed to be in his home office, from which location he ran his international, import-export business.

A sudden, cracking, ripping sound startled her; the kitchen trembled. Marianna spun round and reflexively peered out the window over the sink. Then she ran back the way she’d come, into the dining, and then family room. The pergola was half down, two of the white-painted beams dangling, one torn in two and on the terrace floor, tendrils of brown root wrapped around the pieces. “Oh my god!” she whispered. “Oh my god, oh my god….” And she dashed for the wide staircase with the elaborate wrought-iron railing near the front entrance of the house.

“Oscar, Oscar!” she yelled as she pulled herself up, panting at the effort to move quickly. “Oscar, call the police!” At the landing, which was an open terrazzo hallway that fronted all five rooms in a row, she stopped. “Oscar,” she said, “answer me, please!” She approached her husband’s office, which was on the opposite end from the master bedroom. She crept another couple of feet closer. She thought she could see something light, something pointed marring the cherry-wood frame of the threshold. “It can’t be,” she said out loud. She moved closer, and paused. She leaned towards the doorway. She could see roots, tips of roots, long streamers of roots, tangles of weaving and sinuous roots everywhere. The filled Oscar’s office, pouring in through the three large windows on the other side. She couldn’t see the desk or chair, or the couch that rested against the far wall. She couldn’t see Oscar. “Hun? Sweetie?” she said, her voice cracking. The sound of creaking startled her, and she jumped backwards. She stared, feeling sick to her stomach, as the cherry-wood paneled-door flung back into the room, began to crunch and splinter. The fingers of root on the casing and surrounding the hinges curled and waved and extended in her direction.

Marianna screamed. She shrieked, the sounds coming out of her open mouth repeatedly and without control. She turned and dragged herself to the stairs.