They placed her in a cradle at my roots. I shaded her from the sun, as her mother hung the washing on the line. I couldn’t help it. I fanned her lightly, as her father mowed the lawn. It wasn’t my choice. She slept. And she looked up at me a time or two. I didn't think much about her. She looked like all the others that had come and gone. Little strangers with short lives.

A moment later, she started climbing. I didn't mind much. Her feet followed paths already worn in. She had a bough she always climbed to. She would lie along it, stay up there for a time. It could have been an hour for her, it could have been days. It was never more than seconds to me.

And the next second her mother was wrapping ropes around one of my branches and hanging up a tyre. She swung in that. The ropes bore down, pulled by her weight. They rubbed and rubbed the wood smooth as the tyre swung back and forth. I hardly perceived the pain, it barely lasted.

They bought planks; the remnants of another tree. They pulled them up and nailed them down. The nails pinched. She made a house. She slept there sometimes, when it was dark.

Once she brought a boy up. I heard them grunting and groaning. A thick urgent sound. It meant something, I'm sure, but I didn't care to know what.

And then one day she brought a knife. She climbed up, sat on those wooden planks, and pressed the point into me. She worked away. I heard her mutter. It stung. And when she was finished I felt a sudden thud that frightened me.

Frightened? I'd never been afraid in my life. But the thudding was deep and I didn't know what it was.

'You're bleeding,' she said, and she pressed a palm to me. I felt her hand and I wanted to shiver under it. 'A bleeding heart,' she said and she took her hand away. I looked at her, saw her face, recognised it properly for the first time, and saw her put a finger to her lips. She licked sap from her skin.

'It's an empty heart, you see,' she said and I could only assume she was talking to me. 'I'm saving it for someone special. It's ready. But if they don't come along, then it's just a heart for you and me.' 

I thought about her then. I thought about her all the time. I noticed her get taller, her body fill out. I noticed the books she read were changing. I noticed her spend more time away from me. And when she came back she might bring friends. They would smoke in my shade, and talk about things I didn't understand. She brought another boy. This time as they grunted and groaned, I listened hard. I wanted to understand. She cried out once but it wasn't pain I heard. I was overwhelmingly sad. I shook a little.

'What's happening?' I heard him ask. I felt her press her palm to my heart, the one she had carved for me, the one she'd never filled.

'Bleeding heart,' she said. And then: 'Come on, let's go,' and they went hooting into the night; excited, thrilled, joyful. Not a care for me. Left behind. Left alone.

My moments seemed to last forever now. Every second she was gone seemed longer than the last. And then she was back. She climbed up, following those well worn paths. She was barefoot, I felt her toes grip me. She lay out on that bough, stomach down. I felt a strange thrill, feeling so much of her body at once. She left the bough too soon, dropped down onto the planks and traced the clumsy shape of my heart. It was sticky with drying sap.

'Bleeding heart,' she said. 'I have a name for this now.'

What? She had a name for my heart? The one she carved that belonged to me. I shook. 'Gosh, it's windy,' she said. Windy? Couldn't she see?

She climbed down and I saw her full. She wore a white sundress, and a string of pearls around her neck. She smiled at me and said:

'Oh tree! Isn't it all so wonderful?'

No. No it isn't. She had carved me a heart, made me feel, and then gone. What did she want? What did she expect? She turned away, skipped like a little girl, towards the garden gate. I was outraged. So I reached out. I caught the gate. I couldn't let her go. I held it tight and saw her turn. She trembled when I said: ‘Don’t Go’