A Family Tree

“The house looks amazing!” she exclaimed. “I am so proud of you!” Jamie threw her arms around David and kissed him, so happy for him she could not contain herself.

“Thank you!” he said as they broke apart. “It was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it. And I definitely could not have done it without you.”

They stood for a moment, their arms around each other, to take it all in. They were both just out of college. Jamie was working as a nurse and sharing an apartment with her long-time roommates. Not much had changed for them since they moved off campus, though they did have laundry inside their apartment now, which was a plus. David had gotten his engineering degree and immediately bought his own place. Being just out of college, though, the house he could afford needed some work.

Jamie and David had known each other nearly all their lives, going to school together all the way from elementary school to undergrad. Neither had wanted to leave the town where they grew up. Somewhere along the way, as so often happens in these stories, they had fallen in love. Jamie had never expected that she would have a classic high-school movie romance, but that is how it happened. They had shared their first kiss on prom night and been together since. No one had thought they would make it. They never had any doubts.

While they got settled into their new lives and new jobs, David had also worked on his house and Jamie would come and help when she could. There had been a lot of breaking down walls and putting up new ones. So much sanding and coats of paint. Jamie had been proud of the arm muscles she was developing, helping David carry furniture and planks of wood. Many a night they had eaten pizza out of a box sitting on the floor and shared a bottle of soda between them. It had been hard work, but it had also been pure bliss. Today was the day they could celebrate the work being finished. There was just one thing left to do.

“What is the surprise you were telling me about?” Jamie asked.

“It’s outside, in the backyard. One last project.”

When they stepped out on the patio, Jamie saw a couple of shovels and a small sapling near the back fence of the yard.

Jamie looked at David quizzically.

“Do you remember when we were children, and we would climb and play in the pear tree behind my house all the time?”

“Yes!” Jamie laughed. “Our mothers were convinced we would break a limb or two, but we never did.”

“Not only that, but when the pears would come in, we would eat them straight from the tree, never giving anyone else a chance to pick them first,” David reminisced.

“What great memories,” Jamie murmured.

“That’s why I thought that my house would not be complete without a pear tree of its own,” David said. “Will you help me plant it?”

“Of course!”

A short while later, arms aching in a good way from the effort, they admired their handiwork. The sapling was still small, but they knew the promise it held for the future, the fruit it would bear.

“Actually Jamie, I was not completely truthful,” David said, turning to face her.

Her face clouded over in a concerned frown.

“You see, I said my house would not be complete without a pear tree of its own, but the truth is, my house would not be complete without you in it. Jamie, you make me happier than I ever thought I could be. Every day is an amazing adventure, just because you are in it. I want to spend the rest of my life with you turning this house into a home. And one day, years from now, I want our children to be able to eat pears from this tree and to tell them the story of how we would spend our own summer days falling in love in the branches of such a tree.”

He knelt, pulling a small box from his pocket.

“Jamie, will you marry me?”

And there, next to their small sapling, full of promise for the future, she said yes.