Pastoral by Dinah Cox

That day in autumn, I learned that living past middle age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. A person must endure all those extra birthday celebrations, for one thing, and rather than coming up with better, more sophisticated gift ideas, well-wishers seemed to imagine—in error—that I already had everything I could ever want, and just because I once happened to mention a fondness for ladybugs, my friends and relatives defaulted to online orders of ladybug purses, ladybug gravy boats, ladybug pencil sharpeners—you name it, I had it. You see, I never specified that my affinity was only for real ladybugs, the kind you see in the garden, so I suppose I was at fault, the same as I was for mentioning a fondness for the fifty-year-old river birch in my front yard. 

My son said he wanted to cut it down.

“You know how many branches I picked up yesterday?” he said, leaning against the garage door with that obscene, newly-shaven head of his. “One hundred. One hundred branches.”

“Impossible,” I said, then shielded my eyes against the glint off his big-baby-scalp. “The wind didn’t pick up until noon.”

“I’ll count them for you,” he said. “One, two, three—”

“Stop,” I said. “I believe you.”

The next day, he called the tree surgeons. They traveled in packs, like ants circling a picnic. When their leader knocked on my front door with a work order in one hand and a chainsaw in the other, I let out a very effective, Halloween-style scream. I’m generally not a screamer, but this was a haunted occasion, as evidenced by the leader’s minimal reaction to my maximum one. As the tree surgeons departed down the dusty road to survey the scene, I made myself a pimento cheese sandwich, comfortable in the knowledge that I’d enlisted my neighbor’s help—she was a weightlifter—leaning a hefty stepladder against the river birch’s stout trunk. This was the first line of defense. The second was when I climbed into the arms of the tree and situated myself in the warm embrace of its branches. 

After a while, I ate the sandwich. Not long after that, the ants left.

When my son came by after work, he didn’t even get out of the car. 

He slowed to a stop out by the mailbox and looked up at his target. It was unclear whether or not he noticed me up in my sylvan perch, and after a few minutes passed, I climbed down from the tree. And seeing his face upon my descent was only a Pyrrhic victory, surely, but I took my wins where I could get them. 

The tree surgeons returned the next day, cut down the tree, and hauled away every last branch and woodchip. Afterward, I retreated indoors to grieve, and then my son stopped coming by after work, and after a while, with everything all gone and my mourning rituals complete, I went outdoors again to spend time alone, in the garden.

Dinah Cox has written and published three books of short stories, The Paper Anniversary (Elixir, 2024), The Canary Keeper (PANK Books, 2019), and Remarkable (BOA Editions, 2016). New work appears or is forthcoming in Redivider, Cincinnati Review online, Another Chicago Magazine, Midwest Review, Talking River Review, and Novel Slices. She lives and works in her home town of Stillwater, Oklahoma. 

16 October 2026