The Understory Read Online Free PDF

act as seed dispersers. Story Easton and the fig fruit both used shit as a propagation method. Could a seed of hope survive a swim in a pool of poop? Special Occasions and Ivy Powers were banking on it.
    Following a long afternoon of searching for upbeat sayings to adorn sympathy cards, the afternoon sun began its descent, and Story Easton began her own downward spiral into other people’s dark sides. She left work, grabbed a burger, and headed home to tackle Ten Across, Does the Wright thing. Halfway through her glass of chardonnay, it came to her. Flies. Two correct answers in one day was a new record. Good omen? Knowing it was the Wright thing to do, she initially resisted the compulsion to be someone else, but the longing overpowered her, and after changing her clothes, she soon found herself in her car, driving around, watching the sun retire. And once again, she searched for something, or someone, who would make her forget who she was.
    She drove fifteen minutes on the freeway, long enough for stars to emerge in the Arizona night sky, until she saw an appealing sign—Paradise Valley. Paradise seemed like an improvement, so she took the exit and meandered around until she wound up on a hilly, rural road, a hundred yards away from paradise itself. Illuminated by several yard lights was a Victorian home, painted a robin egg’s blue with white trim, complete with two ornate turrets and wrap-around porch. As one might expect from a fairy-tale scene nestled in the woods, a white picket fence enclosed a lush, green yard, but in the darkness, Story failed to see the patches of brown, dead grass.
    Her parking spot was a small turnout hidden behind a hill, a quarter mile away. She began her trek to the perfect life in the perfect house. After an exhausting day, she was tired and therefore grateful when she saw how easy her entry would be—an open window in a back room on the first floor. Careful to make almost no noise, she extracted the screen, hopped through, and replaced the screen behind her.
    Seeing no signs of life, she inspected the dark room, drenched in spots with moonlight. It was someone’s office, but it was dusty and unused, with an unexpected sadness hanging thick in the air. A nameplate, displayed in brass and mahogany on a large desk, was highlighted by one vibrant moonbeam:
    DAVID PAYNE, ATTORNEY AT LAW
    (AT HOME, JUST DAD )
    Story walked over to a closet’s double doors and peeked inside. With enough moonlight in the right spots, she saw three boxes sitting on the floor. The one closest to her feet caught her attention. Having no lid, its contents overflowed onto the floor. One sheet contained a list of medical histories, and on another were handwritten names and phone numbers. But on another sheet, the sheet that explained how all the unorganized papers were connected, was an old, but beautiful, watercolor painting of a tree with exaggerated branches, each one containing a name written in black-ink calligraphy. And at the top of the parchment page was the title for this worn work of art: Payne Family Tree .
    Jutting out of the box were other framed family trees, each one slightly different, but all related. When Story tried to shut the closet door, the box full of Payne lineage, as if in defiance for not having been properly tended to, somehow got in the way. Using her foot, she pushed the box back into the closet, and in doing so pushed someone’s unfinished project farther away from completion.
    At that moment, in a startling announcement, the only life in the room talked to, talked at , Story. “Miss you,” squawked a green parrot in a silver birdcage hanging in the office corner.
    Story stared at the bird’s head, crowned with an orange, red, and yellow tuft of feathers, and wondered if she was hearing things.
    “Miss you,” it squawked again.
    Story mouthed the words she knew by heart. “ A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: ‘ Allez