SEVEN OF PENTACLES

---

August 21, 2008

---

 

SEVEN OF PENTACLES

J. M. MCDERMOTT

---

     I was having trouble getting all the lemons picked at the time, since my leg had healed funny after I had fallen from a ladder. Gold coins seemed close enough to lemons, if you ask me. My wife was convinced I should stick to lemons.
     I was surprised how cheap the seed was. I bought only the one gold seed from a dealer, because I didn’t know if it would grow well on my land. He tried to sell me some lovely corn, instead. He tried to show me a new breed of lemon that had very small seeds. He insisted I think very hard about the corn and the lemons.
     I insisted, however, on the money tree.
     I put it in my back yard, because I didn’t want the neighbor’s kids stealing the money before it was ripe—or after, for that matter. I watered it every day. I put up a screen to keep the flies off the budding, golden roses.
     It grew like a weed. In just one season, I had quite a bush. The first flowers where fat and shiny and smelled acrid and metallic like gold. The petals leave little flecks of gold dust on your fingers, sticky with this sickly-sweet nectar that attracts lots of flies.
     My wife tried to burn my money tree while I was out in the lemon orchard. I was lucky I got home early. I had to fight her back into the house, and I wish I hadn’t had to hit her so hard.
     Then, I worried that if I stepped away from my money tree long enough to tend the lemons, my wife might destroy my money tree, and I’d have to go back to climbing ladders among the lemon trees, instead of sitting in the house and watching my money grow. Seven glorious golden roses curled into harder and harder metal balls after sunset.
     It wouldn’t be long, now. I could buy all the lemons and fruits and foods I wanted with just one golden coin. I could buy my wife a fine dress and all would be forgiven. I could plant more money trees and more money trees.
     My wife dug up her savings from beneath the kitchen door. She gave it all to the blacksmith’s second son, to keep the lemon orchard tended. I hit her for that. We hadn’t been getting on well since she started fighting my money tree. I’m not sorry I did it, either. Once the money left her hands, it was legally gone.
     I decided to let the boy do all that work. I’d have seven gold coins soon, and that was more than all those measly coppers under the kitchen door.
     I worried someone might steal the coins in the night. I set up a cot in the yard. I slept next to the little tree.
     My wife was fine with that.
     I don’t know why everyone seems to think this is such a bad idea.

---

J.M. McDermott graduated from the University of Houston in 2002 with a BA in Creative Writing. He resides in Arlington, Texas with an assortment of empty coffee cups, overflowing bookshelves, and crazy schemes. His first novel, Last Dragon, is available in all fine bookstores.

---