Eric M Christians

Tillie's Last Hammock

How is it that two oaks, the only pair of trees in Tillie’s backyard, grew exactly ten feet apart? There’s one maple, one walnut, one cottonwood, and one willow, not including the old elm stump. There’s a grove of pines, all at staggered heights, and three fruit trees – an apple, a cherry, and a peach. But there were two oaks, as if God had denied the spot to the oaks but someone else said, “There have to be two there – there have to be two oaks.” God didn’t plant two oaks in Tillie’s backyard. But there they stood.