I’d consulted my old buddy Len, electrician extraordinaire, on the optimal way to ensure the sculpture would last for forty years, and he suggested I make the tiny lights out of hollow, colored glass, not filament. Sort of like an elaborate Lite-Brite, with a back panel that uses two separate light sources, one active and one as backup. When the active one burns out, the backup will kick in while the other is being replaced, and so on and so forth, enabling continuous illumination for the duration of my life.

For over an hour that morning, Eli and I were the only two people in line, and we passed the time talking about a trip he’d taken to Sweden over the summer. He’d been on assignment in Fulufjället National Park and stopped to see a Norway spruce known as Old Tjikko, a tree that’s allegedly been growing since the Neolithic period.

Eli showed me photos of the tree with the kind of dorky zeal I assume I exhibit when I’m talking about redwoods and guitars.

“This guy was born around the time humans learned to cultivate wheat,” Eli said. “That makes him older than bread. Remarkable, huh?”

It was. And at roughly sixteen feet tall, with skeletal branches that sag downward, Old Tjikko looks more like a sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree than the oldest known Picea abies on the planet.

“It’s actually the root system that dates back ninety-five hundred years,” Eli explained. “The trunk and branches have died and been reborn multiple times.”

I wondered aloud if I’d been identifying with the wrong tree all my life. And without thinking, I said, “You should tell October about Old Tjikko when you see her today. She likes trees too.”

Eli had been nearby during my altercation with Rae the day before, but he’d refrained from asking me any questions. Now he knit his brow, spoke softly. “You two have some kind of history, I gather.”

I liked Eli. He was interesting and thoughtful. We’d exchanged phone numbers, and he’d invited me to go sailing with him the following weekend, so I didn’t feel right about making anything up. But I also knew I would need a few beers in me before I could give him the real scoop.

“October and I used to work together.” My body stiffened, a reminder that everything about that woman still lived inside of it. “We were close. It didn’t end well. I guess I’m trying to rectify that.”