Merritt laughed. “Children’s lit isn’t what it was when we were growing up.”
“Sure,” Whit said, joining in the laugh. “Do you know, I readCharlie and the Chocolate Factorywith Annie, and there’s a whole weird white savior thing with Willy Wonka and the Oompa Loompas. I did a lot of impromptu editing.”
Merritt nodded. “Makes sense. It’s everywhere. The Babar books are about an elephant going to Europe and then coming back to Africa ‘civilized.’ Then there’s the sexist stuff—don’t get me started onThe Giving Tree.”
“The Giving Tree?” Whit said, looking genuinely distraught. “But that book’s so sweet.”
“Oh, Whit,” Merritt said, putting her hand on the table like she was about to deliver bad news. “When was the last time you read it?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t read it to Annie when she was little. Must have been when I was a kid.”
“Mm-hmm,” Merritt said, feigning solemnity.
“What?What?”
“The book is about a tree that gives herself away until she’s nothing but a stump.” Merritt raised her hands slightly, as if to say,Can’t you see?“And it’s all to support an ungrateful little boy and his big dreams, and that makes her happy—giving herself away. Being the giving tree. And the boy grows up and he’s wretched, he’s this greedy old man and he’s never fulfilled by any of it, but the tree, which again, is now a stump, ishappy. Happy to be a stump! What a joke.”
Whit scratched the side of his head. “And that’s sexist.”
It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’tnota question.
“Whit,” Merritt said flatly. “Yes.”
“But she’s a tree.”
Merritt pulled her head back. “I thought you were a writer. She’s not just a tree, obviously, and Shel Silverstein goes out of his way to make her afemaletree, whatever that means, and it’s just... I really can’t believe you can’t see how gross that is?”
Whit’s face was still somewhere between distraught and confused. “Isn’t it possible she—the tree—is just being, like, a really good mother? Don’t you think all women, I meanmothers, should be—”
Suddenly, his face cracked into the beginnings of a grin, and he stifled a laugh.
“What?” Merritt asked, something hot flashing across her shoulders. “What? Are you messing with me? You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“I am messing with you,” Whit said, the grin now completeand very puckish. He had good teeth. “I never read that book growing up, but Helen banned it from the house. Someone gave it to us at a baby shower, and she threw it away. Wouldn’t even donate it to a Little Free Library.”
The heat in Merritt’s torso had moved to her face, but it began to subside as Whit spoke. “I knew I liked her,” she said, now able to smile, if just softly.
Whit gave a half-shrug, dropping his eyes slightly. “I did, too.”
Merritt felt the familiar pang of regret, having somehow forced Whit into facing his wife’s death yet again, but she decided that Whit wasn’t allowed to make her feel that way, not even unintentionally, after tricking her into delivering what might uncharitably be called a rant. Well, some things were worth ranting about, and exploitative anti-mother propaganda for children was one of them.
“Don’t mess with me like that,” she said after a moment, her tone that of a woman occupying the high ground. “I won’t apologize for being right about a bad book.”
Whit nodded, smiling with his eyes. “You shouldn’t. I’m very sorry for tricking you into demonstrating your obviously good and noble qualities.”
Why,whydid her face go hot again at that?
“Whatever,” she said, feeling like a teenager in a ’90s movie. “We really should start this chapter.”
She felt him watching her as she opened her laptop again.
“You’re right,” he said. “That would make me, like the tree...happy.”
“Oh, shut up,” Merritt said, staring once again at the shared document. She bit her cheek to keep from giving him the satisfaction of a smile.
Chapter Eleven
Diana was in today, floating between the various displays in a pea green sweater set and pearls. Occasionally she would click her tongue before adjusting a book here and there, but mostly she waved both of her arms over Merritt’s handiwork and nodded approvingly.
