79

“I’ve been watching this tree for a long while,” Agatha says on our way home. She pulls Bertha over to the side of the road and we wait until the truck sputters off. “Come on, come see.” Agatha leads me to a withered tree that juts out over a stone wall. Its trunk is cracked and crossed like old veins and its bony branches reach out to half a dozen young pines that grow up around it in a dizzy circle.

Ugly tree, I think. “So?”

Agatha pokes me and laughs. “You got to look up, Cornelia. Look up!”

When I do, I see that at the very top the tree has freed itself from its bent body and burst into soft blossom. Dozens of bees buzz through its pink halo, making the slim pines crowding all around look empty-headed.

“Now there’s a tree not afraid to be who it is,” says Agatha.