Chapter 89 The Roots Keep Growing
Baby Sarah was two when she spoke her first full sentence under the stars.
She pointed at the ceiling with a chubby finger. "Mine," she said.
Ezra held her on his hip, bouncing her gently. "They're yours. Just like they were mine when I was little."
"Why?"
"Because someone put them here for us. A long time ago. Before you were born."
She reached up, stretching her arm as far as it would go. Her fingers missed by a foot. "Want touch."
"When you're bigger. Stars don't run away."
She learned the story in fragments, as all the children had. Ezra told her about the first Sarah while they watered the oak together. Jay told her about the letters during rainy afternoons when the power flickered. Sofia, now gray-haired and slow, told her about the locket while they baked cookies that burned on the edges.
The yellow room became Sarah's second home. She crawled onto the quilt, tracing the patches with her small fingers. The fabric was soft from decades of washing. She counted the stars but always lost track somewhere past fifty.
"Seventy-something," she said one evening.
"Eighty-three," Ezra corrected. "I counted last week."
"That's too many for my brain."
"It's enough for the ceiling."
Sarah was four when she wrote her first message. She sat at the small desk, the same one where generations had written their letters. She used pink paper and a marker that smelled like bubblegum.
Dear First Sarah,
I am four. I have a cat named Pickle. He is gray and fat and sleeps on my shoes.
I like your stars. They make the room glow at night like a nightlight.
Thank you for not throwing them away.
Love, Baby Sarah
She folded the paper carefully, creasing the edges. She carried it to the wooden box and lifted the heavy lid. The box was so full that papers spilled out when she opened it. She tucked her letter into a gap near the side.
The lid no longer closed at all.
The dogwood grove had seventeen trees. Every spring, petals fell like snowdrifts. Sarah helped plant marigolds, her hands small, her knees muddy, her face streaked with dirt.
Ezra knelt beside a sapling with thin, pale branches. "This one's for you."
"But I already have a tree. The one near the oak."
Ezra placed the roots into the hole Sarah had dug. "This one's for who you'll be when you're grown. The person you're still becoming."
"What color will the flowers be?"
"White. They're always white. That's the rule."
Sarah was seven when she learned to open the locket. Ezra let her wear it for an entire afternoon. The silver was cool against her chest. She kept touching it to make sure it hadn't fallen off.
"These are all the mothers," he said, pointing to the tiny faces.
"There are fathers too. You're in here."
"There are. But the locket started with mothers. That's where the story began."
Sarah studied each face. Sarah #1, Jane, Elena, baby Sarah, David, Rose, Sarah #2, baby Jane, baby Elena, baby Sofia, baby Ezra, baby Sarah (herself). Two empty circles remained.
"There's still empty space."
"For your daughter. When you have one."
"I don't have a daughter."
Ezra tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You will. Time moves faster than you think."
She closed the locket carefully and handed it back. "Keep it safe for me."
"Always."
The years passed. Sarah grew tall, with her father's dark eyes and Jay's easy laugh. She became a carpenter, like her grandfather Marco, who had built houses. She made tables and chairs that lasted, furniture that families passed down.
She visited the yellow room whenever she needed quiet. The stars had been replaced many times, but the originals hung in a shadow box on the wall. She would sit on the yellow quilt, now so threadbare that the batting showed through, and breathe.
One rainy afternoon, she opened the wooden box and pulled out a letter at random. It was written in red crayon on a crumpled napkin.
Dear Yellow Room,
My name is Sofia. I am six. I like your stars. They make me feel safe when the wind is loud.
Thank you for being here for me.
Love, Sofia
Sarah read it twice, then smoothed the napkin and put it back.
She was twenty-four when she met a woman who grew vegetables. Her name was Rio, and she smelled like basil and fresh soil. They met at a farmers' market, in front of a table piled with heirloom tomatoes.
Sarah bought three. Rio handed her a free pepper. "Try it," Rio said.
"It's green."
"It's good. Trust me."
Sarah bit into it. Juice ran down her chin. "It is good."
"I told you."
She brought Rio to the yellow room on a summer evening. The setting sun painted the stars gold.
"These are my people," Sarah said, gesturing at the ceiling.
Rio looked up, turning in a slow circle. "They had good taste."
"They had hope."
"That's the same thing. Hope and taste."
They married under the oak. Sarah wore the locket over a simple white dress. Rio wore a crown of marigolds and basil leaves woven together. The dogwoods were in full bloom, white petals covering the grass like a carpet.
Ezra walked Sarah down the aisle. Jay played guitar, a song he had written the night before.
Sofia, now in a wheelchair, threw petals from a paper cup with trembling hands.
"You look like your grandmother," Sofia said.
"Which one?"
"All of them. Every single one."
Sarah was twenty-eight when they had a daughter. A baby with curly dark hair and a fierce, loud cry. They named her Jane, after the nurse who had held so many hands in a children's hospital decades ago.
Ezra held the baby in the yellow room while Sarah rested. The stars glowed in the afternoon light.
"Welcome back, Jane," he whispered. "You've been here before. In the stories."
The baby stopped crying and looked at the ceiling.
The locket now holds sixteen photographs. Sarah added her daughter's picture herself, a tiny square cut from the hospital band.
She gave the locket to baby Jane on her first birthday.
"You're too young," Sarah said. "You'll put it in your mouth. But one day this will be yours. All of it."
Jane grabbed the silver chain and shook it.
"Soon," Sarah said. "Soon enough."
The dogwoods bloom every spring. Eighteen trees. Sarah planted the eighteenth herself on the day Jane took her first wobbly steps across the garden.
The yellow room waits. The wood box holds its secrets. The stars glow.
The story has no end.