Chapter 88 The Boy Under the Stars
Ezra was four when he first asked about the locket.
Sofia wore it every day, tucked beneath her collar. He had seen it during bath time, when the chain slipped out while she leaned over the tub.
"Mama, why do you have pictures in your necklace?"
"Because they're the people who made us who we are. They’re our roots."
"Can I see?"
Sofia opened the silver heart. Thirteen faces stared back. Ezra pointed at the newest one. "That's me."
"That's you. When you were tiny. You had almost no hair."
He touched the empty circles with his thumb. "Who goes here?"
"Your children. Someday. When you're ready."
Ezra visited the yellow room every afternoon. He didn't name the stars like Sofia had done. He counted them. Over and over. The number never changed, but he counted anyway, lying on the yellow quilt with his feet in the air.
"There are eighty-three," he announced one day.
"How do you know?"
"I counted twice. Once forward, once backward."
Sofia smiled. "That's a lot of wishes."
"Are they all used up?"
"No. They're still waiting."
When Ezra was six, he wrote his first letter. Not on paper. On a wooden star he carved with a blunt knife under Lena's careful supervision. The wood was soft pine. The edges were rough.
Ezra, age 6, was here.
He hung it on the wall with a thumbtack, next to a silver star that had been there since before anyone could remember.
Sofia found it that night. She didn't move it. She traced the letters with her finger.
The dogwood grove had fifteen trees now. On a cool Saturday, Ezra helped plant the fifteenth, a sapling with thin, pale roots.
"This one's for you," Sofia said.
"I already have one. The crooked one near the fence."
"This one's for who you'll become. The person you're still growing into."
Ezra patted the soil with his palms. "I'll water it every day."
"Every day is a lot. You'll forget."
"Then every week."
"That's better."
Ezra was nine when Sofia told him the whole story. Not in pieces. All at once, on a rainy afternoon when the power was out and they sat by the window.
"Your great-great-great-great-grandmother was a woman named Sarah. She had a baby she couldn't keep. She left her at a hospital with a note."
Ezra listened without moving. His hands were still. "Was she sad?"
"Very sad. She cried for years."
"But she did it anyway."
"Because she loved her daughter more than herself. That's the hardest kind of love."
Ezra looked at the yellow room ceiling. "That's a lot of love."
"It's everything. It's why we're here."
He wrote his first letter to Sarah when he was eleven. He used blue ink and a fountain pen Lena had given him for his birthday. The nib scratched the paper.
Dear Sarah,
I am the first boy in the yellow room. I don't know if you thought about boys when you put up the stars. Maybe you only thought about your daughter and her daughters.
But I'm here now. And I'll take care of the stars for you. I'll count them every year.
Ezra
He folded the paper and placed it in the wooden box. The lid no longer closed all the way. Too many letters, too many years. He didn't mind. He left it slightly open.
Ezra was fourteen when he started carving new stars. Not from paper. From wood. He used scraps from Lena's studio—maple, walnut, cedar. Each one different. Each one personal.
He gave them to family members on birthdays. A star for Sofia. A star for Lena. A star for every dogwood tree. He hung one on the oak he had planted, tying it to a branch with twine.
The yellow room ceiling grew more crowded. The old silver stars now shared space with wooden ones, some dark, some pale.
He was seventeen when he first fell in love. A boy named Jay who played guitar and laughed too loud, his head thrown back.
Ezra brought him to the yellow room on a Sunday afternoon. The light was gold.
"What is this place?" Jay asked.
"My family's heart. Where all the stories live."
Jay looked at the stars. "It's beautiful."
"It's old."
"Old is good. Old means it lasted."
Ezra was twenty when he planted his own tree. Not a dogwood. An oak. He put it at the edge of the grove, away from the others, its acorns still green.
"Why an oak?" Sofia asked.
"Because I'm different. I'm the first boy. I need a different tree. Something that lasts longer."
Sofia hugged him. "You're not different. You're part of the same root."
He hugged her back. "I know. But I want my own branch. My own shape."
He married Jay under the oak. The dogwoods were bare, their branches like winter bones, but the oak was full. Green leaves covered them like a tent.
Ezra wore the locket. He had added Jay's picture to one of the empty circles himself, the silver frame tight around the tiny photo.
"You're in my family now," he said.
Jay touched the locket. "I've been in your family for years. I just didn't have a picture."
Ezra was twenty-eight when they adopted a daughter. A baby with brown skin and a quiet calm, born on a Tuesday. They named her Sarah. The first Sarah. The one who started everything.
Sofia held the baby in the yellow room. Her hands trembled.
"You're back," Sofia whispered. "You came back after all this time."
The baby opened her eyes and looked at the stars.
The locket now holds fifteen photos. Ezra added his daughter's picture himself, his hands shaking so badly he almost dropped the chain.
He gave the locket to baby Sarah on her first birthday.
"You can't wear this yet," he said. "It's too big. But I'll keep it safe until you can."
The baby grabbed his finger and held on.
The dogwoods bloom every spring. Sixteen trees. Ezra planted the sixteenth on the day baby Sarah laughed for the first time, a sound lik
e bells.
The yellow room waits.
The stars wait.
The story turns. It does not end.