When my father calls, sometimes I pretend to listen. Sometimes I pretend I am not scrolling through my phone or staring at my laptop, my mind wandering. I blame my father for this habit of mine; my whole childhood, it always seemed like he was pretending to listen. If I asked him a question, he would respond with a grunt, barely lifting his head up from whatever task he was focused on.
My father asks me about work, but I am staring out the window at the garden in front of my flat, where an oak tree stands, planted in a square of soil. It reminds me of the oak tree in my childhood yard, though unlike that yard, this garden is concrete, as are all the others on this street, each with a different tree: oak, maple, willow, fig, hornbeam, lime, plum, chestnut, sycamore, alder, hawthorn. I consider whether this assortment of trees makes up a forest — the street certainly appears forested from a distance, thick with crisscrossing branches.
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