"That is oddly specific advice."
"It is universal advice. Also, do not use Hattie as a reason to make that tree into a problem it is not. If you want a big tree, buy a big tree. Do not make the little one apologize for existing."
Gideon looked at the corner. The little tree stood there like a promise he had not fully understood when he made it.
Gideon, for his part, spent a lunch hour on a job site where a staircase banister had been sanded so aggressively it looked ashamed of its own history. He told the contractor to stop. He ran his palm along the remaining wear and thought of Celeste saying continuity was harder than spectacle. He took a photograph of the banister and did not send it to her; he was learning that not every insight needed an audience. Still, the thought of her sat in his chest like a good weight.
That evening June made Hattie write thank-you notes for birthday-party favors, a civilizing ritual Hattie accepted only because it came with stickers. Midway through a note, Hattie asked, "Is Celeste your girlfriend?"
Gideon, drying a plate, said, "She is a person I am getting to know carefully."
"That is a long word for maybe," Hattie said.
"Maybe is allowed," June cut in. "Maybe is how adults keep from breaking things they like."
Hattie considered this, applied three stickers to one envelope, and said, "Button likes her. Button is a good judge."
Gideon looked at the little tree in the corner, lights on early because the afternoon had gone dark too fast. "Button has taste," he agreed.
He bought a six-foot fir from a lot on Tenth the following evening, because Hattie had taped sixteen drawings of tall trees to the refrigerator and because he was, at heart, a man who solved discomfort with acquisition when emotion felt too blunt an instrument. The big tree filled the living room with scent and spectacle. The little one remained on its stool in the corner, lights wound carefully through its branches, a paper star Hattie had made tilting slightly to the left. Guests, had there been any, would have understood immediately which tree was meant to be admired. Gideon told himself both were loved. The little tree, being a tree, did not argue. It only dropped a few more needles onto the floorboards, quietly, as living things do when the air is dry.
Celeste came for the second coffee on Saturday morning at Reza's. She wore the olive coat again. Gideon wore the camel coat again. They looked, Reza observed privately, like two people who had agreed to audition for a winter postcard and were trying not to notice.
"Hattie named your tree," Gideon said. "She calls it Button."
"That is a good name for a small brave thing," Celeste said.