When I was a kid living just outside of Houston, we had a magnolia tree in our backyard. It bloomed in early summer then shed a blanket of petals. When the magnolia was in full bloom, I liked to sit under it and make up stories. I named my magnolia tree Maggie. She was my friend and a really good listener. On one hot Texas summer day I saw a bird under Maggie. It wasn't moving. I was all of five or six, but I didn't tell anyone. I dug a hole under my tree and buried the bird.
In high school, after my family had move to Venezuela then back to the same house in Texas, I rediscovered my tree. I decided to make perfume out of the petals. Though I didn't really know what I was doing, I managed to get a concoction that smelled something like perfume. But every time I thought of using it, I refrained. Eventually, it went bad and I threw it out. It wasn't until years later when I saw a dead squirrel under a magnolia tree that I realized I associated the smell of magnolias with death.
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