Limonella
Limonella
A gull feather drifted past as the crane’s sling steadied the old lemon tree above the waiting hole.
“Left a touch… now ease her down,” Mum called, boots planted in black clay.
The root‑ball sighed into its new cradle. Earthy citrus filled the morning air.
Dad pivoted the hose nozzle. Sunlight fractured in the spray and the twins shrieked—two rainbow‑chasing sprites in gumboots. Mum smiled, but the muscles behind her eyes were tight.
High on the ridge, eucalyptus rattled like distant applause. Below, the Hollow’s waterfall kept gentle time. This was the other side of Mum’s childhood mountain, yet it felt strange, as if north had shifted.
She pressed a palm to the scarred trunk. “Welcome home, Limonella.”
The name tasted of wood‑smoke evenings and tea leaves—of her mother.
*Once, on the far slope…*
Little Meg had followed her mother to the foot of the garden, mug of tea balanced between them.
“Why’re lemons sour and sweet?” she’d asked.
“Because they listen,” Mum laughed. She trickled the first sip onto the roots. “A true friend takes your tears and your joy, then returns them in fruit.”
Under that tree, troubles softened like sugar in hot water.
---
A shovel rang against stone, yanking Meg—now Mum—back to the ridge. She blinked at the emptiness beside her. No copper‑haired woman wiping soil on floral slacks; no laughter like chimes.
Dad stepped close, reading her silence. “She’d be stoked you saved the old girl before the bulldozers came.”
“Would she?” Meg’s voice wavered. *What if transplanting was a second loss?*
She remembered the demolition notice tacked to her mother’s gate, the frantic midnight dig, every root wrapped in wet hessian. *Please live,* she’d whispered then. *Please keep our stories alive.*
Now wind lifted the lemon’s highest shoot. It quivered, found the sun, and held.
Meg exhaled.
She knelt and tamped soil, each pat a promise. Around her, the twins built imaginary moats; Dad fetched mulch; kookaburras stitched blue sky to forest.
Meg poured a splash of peppermint tea into the basin around the trunk. “First sip’s yours, old friend.”
Warmth slipped through her—like sap, like memory—settling where grief had ached. She brushed a leaf; oil burst bright and sharp, and something inside clicked into place.
“Mum?” one twin asked, face freckled with loam. “Will lemons grow this year?”
“Soon,” Meg said. “Trees need time to remember where they are.”
She paused, hearing her own words. *So do daughters.*
She rose, dirt under her nails and peace in her chest. Dad looped an arm around her waist. Together they studied the transplanted sentinel, crown tilted toward the forest it would now watch for another lifetime.
Meg spoke, not to the family but to the lemon: “Rest easy, Story Keeper. We’ll bring you our lows and highs—just like before.”
A breeze carried the promise downhill, across the waterfall, up the ghost‑gum slopes to the garden that was no more.
Above the ridge, a single white blossom cracked open, releasing a faint, honeyed mist.