The Goodbye Tree

Nadia pressed her hand flat against the oak tree's bark and felt the rough grooves push back against her palm, the way they always did, like the tree was holding her hand right back.

Tomorrow, the moving truck would come.

She looked up through the branches. They spread out wide and tangled above her, like a giant's arms reaching in every direction. In spring, those branches made a ceiling of green so thick that rain could barely drip through. In winter, they went bare and bony, and Nadia could see the stars between them.

But right now it was October, and the leaves were gold and orange and the color of the inside of a peach, and they fluttered down around her like confetti at a party nobody had planned.

Nadia reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She'd written on it that morning in her very best handwriting — the kind she only used for important things.

She stood on her tiptoes and slipped the note into the knothole.

The knothole was about as big as a cereal bowl, worn smooth on the edges from rain and wind and years and years. Nadia had found it when she was five, back when she had to jump to reach it. Now she barely had to stretch.

That first note had said: My name is Nadia. I live in the blue house. This is my tree.

She remembered writing it at the kitchen table, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth. She'd folded it into a tiny square and tucked it deep inside the hole, where the wood was dry and soft and smelled like a library book that hadn't been opened in a long time.

She didn't know why she'd done it. It just felt like the right thing to do — like the tree should know who she was.

After that, the notes kept coming.

When her baby brother Rami was born, she'd written: I have a brother now. He is very loud but also very small, so I forgive him.

When she'd lost the class spelling bee on the word "beautiful" — she'd put the a before the u — she'd written: I am never spelling anything ever again. Then, two days later: Okay, I'm spelling again. But I'm still mad about it.

When Grandma Sana came to visit from far away and made cinnamon cake and let Nadia stay up late and told her stories about growing up in a village near the sea, Nadia had written: I wish I could keep today in a jar.

When her best friend Amira got mad at her for two whole weeks over something so small that neither of them could even remember what it was afterward, Nadia had written: I don't think Amira likes me anymore. And then, when they made up: She does.

Three years of notes, folded into squares and triangles and little scrolls, tucked one by one into the knothole of the oak tree at the edge of her backyard.

And now Nadia stood in front of it with the last one.

She'd written: We're moving to a place called Riverdale. Dad says it has a park and a library and a really good bakery. I don't care about the bakery.

She'd paused after that line and chewed on her pen cap for a long time.

Then she'd added: Okay. I care a little about the bakery.

But underneath the joke, she'd written the truest thing: I don't want to say goodbye to you.

A leaf spiraled down and landed on her shoe. Nadia picked it up, twirled it by the stem, and tucked it into her pocket.

"Nadia!" her mom called from the back porch. "Come help with the kitchen boxes!"

"One minute!" Nadia called back.

She leaned her forehead against the bark. It was cool and rough and smelled like earth and rain. She closed her eyes.

She thought about all those notes sitting inside the tree. Dozens of them. Maybe even a hundred — she'd lost count. All those tiny pieces of her, folded up and hidden away in the dark. Her happiest days. Her worst days. Her silliest thoughts and her most secret feelings.

What would happen to them?

Would the rain eventually find them and turn them to mush? Would a squirrel shred them up for a nest? Would someone new move into the blue house and find the knothole and pull them all out and read them?

That last thought made her stomach flip. But then she let herself really think about it — some kid, maybe her age, standing on tiptoes, reaching inside, unfolding a tiny square of paper and reading I have a brother now. He is very loud but also very small, so I forgive him — and something warm bloomed in her chest.

Maybe that kid would laugh. Maybe that kid would start leaving notes too.

"NADIA! The boxes!"

"COMING!"

She gave the tree one more long look. She wanted to memorize it — every bump and ridge, the way the roots rose up out of the ground like knuckles, the way one branch on the left side dipped low enough to sit on, the way the knothole looked like a mouth frozen in the middle of saying oh.

"You were a really good tree," she whispered. Then she felt silly. Then she didn't feel silly at all.

She patted the bark twice — pat, pat — the way she always did, and walked toward the house.

The next morning was loud and busy and full of tape and bubble wrap and her dad saying "Has anyone seen the car keys?" four different times. Rami ran around with a box on his head pretending to be a robot. Nadia's mom labeled everything with a thick black marker: KITCHEN. BEDROOM. FRAGILE.

Nadia carried a box of her books to the truck. She carried a lamp. She carried a bag of shoes. Every time she passed the window, she looked out at the oak tree standing at the edge of the yard, calm and still, like it was watching.

When the last box was loaded, Nadia's dad said, "Want to do one final walkthrough?"

Nadia nodded.

She walked through the empty house. Her footsteps echoed in rooms that used to be full. Her bedroom looked so much bigger without her bed and her bookshelf and her star-shaped nightlight. The walls still had tiny nail holes where her drawings had hung.

She walked out the back door and across the yard one more time. She put her hand on the oak tree. The bark pushed back.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the leaf from yesterday. She'd meant to keep it. But now she reached up and tucked it back into the knothole, alongside all her notes.

Something for the tree to keep of her, the way she'd keep it in her mind.

Then she ran her fingers along the smooth edge of the knothole one last time. She turned and walked to the car where her family was waiting. Rami was already buckled in, making robot noises. Her mom handed her a granola bar. Her dad finally had the car keys.

As they pulled away from the blue house, Nadia pressed her face against the window. She could see the oak tree getting smaller and smaller behind them, its golden leaves catching the morning light.

She pulled a notebook from her backpack and a pen from her pocket.

On the first page, she wrote: October 14. Leaving day. There's a bakery in Riverdale. I care a lot about the bakery, actually.

She paused, chewed on the pen cap, and kept writing.

I wonder if there are any good trees.