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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
The house I grew up in is located in a subdivision, and when my family first arrived the front yards were, if not completely bare, then at least close to it. It was my father who rallied the neighbors and initiated a campaign to plant maples along the side of the road. Holes were dug, saplings were delivered, and my sisters and I remarked that, with the exception of birds, trees were the only things on earth that weren't cute when they were babies. They looked like branches stuck into the ground, and I remember thinking that by the time they were fully grown I would be old.
And that's pretty much what happened.
Throughout my teens and early twenties, I'd wonder if my father hadn't made a mistake and ordered pygmy maples, if such a thing existed. During my thirties, they grew maybe three feet, tops, but after that their development was astonishing. The last time I saw them, they were actual trees, so tall that the upper branches on the left side of the road mingled with those on the right, forming a solid canopy of shade. This was a few years ago. I was in Raleigh for the night, and my father took me to a party hosted by one of his neighbors. I used to know everyone on our street, but since I'd moved away there had been a lot of turnover. People die, or move into condominiums, and their homes are sold to young married couples who scrap the earth-toned carpets and build islands in the kitchens. The interiors of these houses used to look the same, and, eventually, as each is bought and remodelled, they'll look the same again, but in a different way.
The party was held at what I thought of as "the Rosens' place," though that was two owners ago. The hostess was one of the new people, as were her guests, and it surprised me that my dad knew everyone's name. Here were Phil and Becky, Ashley and Dave, and a rather excitable fifteen-year-old who threw himself upon the sofa with great flourish and referred to my father as a she, as in "Lou Sedaris, who invited her?"
"My son is gay!" the boy's mother announced, as if none of us had figured this out yet. He...
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