Just seconds after my quarter plinked against the insides of the jukebox, the song’s slow, lonesome beginning made me feel all kinds of miserable.

“Come on, Cass.” Dad was standing beside the register, writing directions on a sugar packet. When I walked up next to him, the pen poked right through the paper and spilled a little pile of granules on the counter.

“Good news,” he said. “We don’t have far to go.”

Our next stop was so close, it was no wonder our directions fit on that tiny packet. My toothpick hadn’t even lost its minty flavor by the time we reached the place, which was really nothing but a clump of forest, marked by a sign that looked like the words had been burned into it. The one-lane road closed in around The Roast tight like a green sleeve. We passed through a collection of trees that were the tallest I’d ever seen, until we got deeper into the forest and saw some even bigger. One that looked like the great-granddaddy of them all stood over to the right, with an orange rope around it. There was no one else around, so Dad and I stopped right in the middle of the road and got out. The tip of the tree seemed to disappear into the slow-drifting clouds.

“Go ahead. Give it a read,” Dad said, pointing to a plaque on the ground between the tree’s roots. It said:

The Castanea dentata is characterized by the large saw-teeth on the edges of its leaves, as indicated by the scientific name dentata, which is Latin for “toothed.” Commonly called the American chestnut, the tree is a prolific bearer of nuts, usually with three nuts contained in each spiny green burr. This, the largest surviving Castanea dentata tree in Kentucky, measures 32 inches wide and 86 feet tall.

I had no idea a Castanea dentata could even sprout leaves, much less grow to be such a giant. I looked all the way up its trunk until my neck hurt. Like I could have flopped right on over into a backbend just to see it all.

“Wow,” I said.

“Really something, huh?” said Dad. He picked one of the loose burrs off the ground and pried it open. “Check this out, Cass. See those three nuts in there?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let’s say, hypothetically, of course, that one of those nuts were to go away.”

“To Florida?”

“Wherever a misguided nut sees fit to go.”

He thumped hard at one of the seeds and sent it bouncing across the forest floor. “I bet even with that one nut gone, we could plant this here burr and grow us a new Castanea dentata that would make this big tall tree look just like your toothpick. Who knows? Maybe it will be the Alabama state champion by the time you and I are both gray-headed. You think?”

“It reaches out so wide,” I said.

Dad put his hand on my shoulder real light and cautious, like he expected a static electricity shock.

“And we’ll be far-reaching too,” he said. “Me and you together.”

“We will?”

“Sure we will,” he said. “Just us two nuts…and some Sway.”

And some Sway. His words echoed in my head.

“Let’s sit a spell, if you don’t mind,” said Dad, and we squatted at the base of the tree.

“Think about it, Cass. You and I have something big in that brown suitcase. Something that can help us get past all this heartache and hurt. Maybe not quickly, and maybe not completely, but it’s something pretty good we’ve begun, right?”

“Right.”

“I mean, just because your mom stopped helping doesn’t mean we have to. I’m sure not ready to call it quits on our adventure, are you?”

“No, sir,” I said. “It felt really good to help people…like we did with the Belfusses. It was like all that stuff we did for them was really helping me too.”

“Yeah, I’d kind of like to feel some more of that myself,” Dad said, patting me on the knee. “And where there’s a will, there’s some Sway, no?”

Just the mention of Sway rounded off the sharp-cornered hurt inside me.

“Well, that settles it, then,” said Dad. “Let’s camp here in the forest for tonight, and first thing tomorrow we’ll get on the road and do us a little sole-searching. Unless, of course, you’re weary of the shoe thing.”

The instant sting of Dad’s comment made me realize that in a matter of days I’d become kind of attached to the Sneaker Reacher routine.

“No, it’s actually pretty fun,” I said, picking at the split in the bottom of my flip-flop. “I mean, a rule is a rule, right?”

“I guess you’re right.” Dad smiled as he stood and picked the empty burrs from his behind. He held out his hand to help me up, and passed the little green seedy one into my palm. On the way back to The Roast, I held the burr just tight enough to keep it from dropping and from prickling me too much. When we got there, Dad grumbled about the fresh coat of sticky specks along the sides and front of the RV.

“Sappy Castanea dentata,” he said.

Sappy Dad, I thought as I wrapped the little seed burr in a tissue and nested it gently into my cup holder.

That night, through my moonroof, I could see a rectangle’s worth of Castanea dentata branches silhouetted against the sky. Being that close to my magnificent namesake inspired me so, I lifted the bottom corners of the Eiffel poster and tacked them up with bits of tape torn from the lint roller. Sharpie in hand, I got to work, at first just outlining a simple, fat tree trunk under the big SWAY that was already there. The tree grew as I added twisted roots to the bottom and a scattering of crooked limbs to the top, drawing more feverishly as I considered the distinct possibility that Sway could very well make Cass a far-reaching girl.

Come morning, the canopy of green around us hung dewy and low. With no room to turn The Roast around, Dad backed and beeped us all the way out of those woods. Through the sticky-speckled windshield, I watched the Castanea dentata until nothing was left but its rounded top rising high and lush above the forest. Like nothing in the world could ever bend it.