Another year passed. As May neared, I found myself hosting more scraps of fabric than budding leaves.
Squibbles tried to steal a few fabric strips to line his drey, the nest made of leaves and twigs high in one of my forked branches. I explained he’d have to stick with moss and pine needles until the first of May. Wishes, according to Maeve, could not be touched until after May Day. Then, the ones that weren’t carried off in the wind or dragged to the ground by the rain could be removed by people—or by enterprising squirrels.
I suspect she made up that rule for my benefit, so I could grow unfettered, without the weight of wet rags dragging me down.
Just before dawn on the first of May, a young woman approached me. She had dark, wavy hair and wore a tattered gray coat. In her arms was a wrapped bundle.
“Psst,” Squibbles whispered to me. “Here comes another wish, Red.”
But Squibbles was wrong. There was no wish.
Swiftly, but with great care, the girl placed her bundle in my hollow.
A thank-you for Maeve, I realized. A loaf of bread, perhaps. The girl had probably been one of her patients.
She was gone as quickly as she’d come.
Like a hummingbird, I thought: There, then not there.
Like a gust of wind.
35
Just a few minutes later, Maeve opened the door of the little brown house. She smiled at me, and at the scraps waving in the early-morning breeze.
And then came the cry.
Wail, was more like it.
Coming from … me.
Not the meek peep of a wren chick. Not the shy squeak of a mouse pup. No: This was a cry of righteous indignation.
This was a baby.
36
The baby had a note attached to her blanket. Haltingly, Maeve tried to read it out loud. “Italian,” she murmured.
Only later, when she consulted one of her patients, did she understand its meaning: Please give her the care I cannot.
I wish for you both a life of love.
The baby’s hair was black. Maeve’s was red.
The baby’s eyes were brown. Maeve’s were blue.
The baby was Italian. Maeve was Irish.
They were made for each other.
Maeve named the baby Amadora, which meant, in Italian, “the gift of love.”
37
Many in the neighborhood didn’t approve of an unmarried Irish woman raising an abandoned Italian baby. People talked, as they will, and they tsk-tsked, as they must.
Some people were even angry. They said hurtful things.
They told Maeve that Amadora didn’t belong.
They told Maeve she and the baby should leave.
Maeve merely smiled, held Amadora close, and waited and hoped.
On dark nights when hope was scarce, she would sing an old Irish tune, mixed with a newer, Italian song that she had learned from a neighbor. The melody was sweet. The words were silly. The effect was always the same: a smile from little Ama.
Sure enough, the longer Maeve waited, the kinder people grew. And before long, Ama, as she came to be called, was as much a part of our messy garden as all the rest of us.
When Ama was old enough to feed Squibbles and his family, she did. When she was strong enough to climb me, she did. And when she was ready to make wishes of her own, she did.
Ama grew up steady and honest and kind, like her mother, and had babies of her own, and then grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Eventually Ama and her husband bought the little brown house, and the one right next to it, and painted them blue and green. Years later, they purchased a house across the street and began to rent the blue and green houses to other families.
The family grew and prospered and argued and failed and loved and laughed.
Always and forever, the laughter kept them going.
And when Ama’s grandson had a little girl, he chose a fine Italian name for her, with a fine Irish middle name: Francesca Maeve.
38
As for me, my reputation grew. Hadn’t Maeve’s wish come true in the heart of a wishtree? Didn’t that mean anything was possible?
Of course, as Squibbles often reminded me, I’d had nothing to do with it.
“This isn’t a fairy tale, Red,” he would say.
But people are full of longings, and decade after decade, the hopes kept coming.
A blessing and a burden it has been, all those wishes, all those years.
But everyone needs to hope.
39
At long last, I stopped talking.
Once the words had spilled out, it was like trying to stop the wind.
In the silence that followed, I felt as if the whole world was holding its breath.
I’d broken the rule.
Stephen and Samar still stared open-mouthed at me. They looked as rooted to the ground as I was. Neither had uttered a sound while I’d told my story.
The front door to Stephen’s house opened. “Stephen?” called his father. “What the heck are you doing, young man?”
Stephen leapt to his feet. “I … Here I come, Dad. Um, night, Samar.”
“Night, Stephen,” she said.
Stephen dashed toward the porch, but stopped halfway. He spun around to look at me.
“Thanks?” he said in a quizzical voice, using the same tone he might have used if Bongo had just made him pancakes.
The door slammed behind him.
Samar stood, holding her blanket to her chest. “I know I must be dreaming,” she said.
She headed to her own porch and eased open the door.
“I just wish,” she added with a smile, “that I didn’t have to wake up.”
40
Almost instantly, I regretted what I’d done.
I’d broken the rule. The biggie.
I’d deliberately spoken to people.
And not just a few words. I’d spoken a river of words.
I wasn’t like that frog in the mailbox. I hadn’t broken the rule accidentally.
I’d broken the rule because I wanted something. I wanted to matter. I wanted to do something meaningful before I died.
I’d done it for myself.
After the shocked babies and their equally shocked parents were safely ensconced in their dens, I admitted my feelings to Bongo.
I waited for her to yell at me.
Bongo is good at yelling.
Extremely good.
You might even say she has a gift.
“Why did I do it, Bongo?” I murmured. “Why?”
She flew to Home Plate. She stroked my rough bark with her sleek head.
“You did it, my Wise Old Tree, because you had a story to tell.”
“It was foolish,” I said. “I’m not supposed to be foolish.”
“Not so foolish,” Bongo said. “Just hopeful. And everyone needs to hope, Red. Even Wise Old Trees.”
41
Morning emerged slowly, heavy with clouds. A light rain had fallen just before dawn, soothing my leaves, if not my mood.
Oddly, the ground felt saturated. Spring was always muddy, of course, but this was unusual. It would make for a messy Wishing Day tomorrow.
An early-rising old gentleman with a bamboo cane approached. He paused to attach a small piece of blue paper to my lowest branch, using a bit of twine. He didn’t say his wish aloud, so I couldn’t tell what it was. But he had a satisfied smile as he stepped carefully through the soggy grass.