The Forgetting Tree

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He was a respectable and loyal man, Octavio Mejia, the father of six children, and he had been late to leave that day, treating an infestation of whitefly on the newly planted Valencia trees. It was a Friday evening, his daughter’s quinceañera, and he hurried the stick shift into reverse and stepped hard on the gas with his heavy, rubber-soled workboot even as the car bounced over a small mound under the lemon tree where he had parked for shade.

Forster and Claire had insisted he go on with the family celebration even though they would not attend. But he also was in mourning for the missing boy. Did they not see? Octavio had worked hard his whole life and mainly had a mountain of bills to show for it. The quinceañera had cost his whole paycheck for two months, Forster chipping in a hefty bonus, and even then, his wife, Sofia, and his teenaged girls were not quite satisfied that it would outshine the neighbors’ recent parties.

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