In this chapter I will focus more on Tiffany's relationship with the tree.

Enjoy :)

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When I was little, my dad would let me sit beside him on the porch while he painted, as long as I'd be quiet. I don't do quite easily, but I discovered that after five or ten minutes without a peep, he'd start talking.

I've learned a lot about my dad that way. He told me all sorts of stories about what he'd done when he was my age, and other things, too—like how he got his first job delivering hay, and how he wished he'd finished college.

When I got a little older, he still talked about himself and his childhood, but he also started asking questions about me. What were we learning at school? What book was I currently reading? What did I think about this or that.

Then one time he surprised me and asked me about Taeyeon. Why was I so crazy about Taeyeon?

I told him about his eyes and his hair and the way his cheeks blush, but I don't think I explained it very well because when I was done Dad shook his head and told me in soft, heavy words that I needed to start looking at the whole landscape.

I didn't really know what he meant by that, but it made me want to argue with him. How could he possibly understand about Taeyeon? He didn't know him!

But this was not an arguing spot. Those were scattered throughout the house, but not out here.

We were both quiet for a record-breaking amount of time before he kissed me on the forehead and said, “Proper lighting is everything, Stephanie.”

Proper lighting? What was that supposed to mean? I sat there wondering, but I was afraid that by asking I'd be admitting that I wasn't mature enough to understand, and for some reason it felt obvious. Like I should understand.

Mostly the things he talked about floated around me, but once in a while something would happen and I would understand exactly what he had meant. “A painting is more than the sum of its parts,” he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic.

I understood what he was saying, but I never felt what he was saying until one day when I was up in the sycamore tree.

The sycamore tree had been at the top of the hill forever. It was on a big vacant lot, giving shade in the summer and a place for birds to nest in the spring. It had a built-in slide for us, too. Its trunk bent up and around in almost a complete spiral, and it was so much fun to ride down.

I had always played in the tree, but I didn't become a serious climber until the fifth grade, when I went up to rescue a kite that was stuck in its branches. I'd first spotted the kite floating free through the air and then saw it dive-bomb somewhere up the hill by the sycamore tree.

I've flown kites before and I know—sometimes they're gone forever, and sometimes they're just waiting in the middle of the road for you to rescue them. Kites can be lucky or they can be ornery. I've had both kinds, and a lucky kite is definitely worth chasing after.

This kite looked lucky to me. It wasn't anything fancy, just an old-fashioned diamond with blue and yellow stripes.

It was a long ways up, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I shinnied up the trunk, took a shortcut across the slide, and started climbing. Prince kept a good eye on me, barking me along, and soon I was higher than I'd ever been. But still the kite seemed forever away.

Then below me I noticed Taeyeon coming around the corner and through the vacant lot. And I could tell from the way he was looking up that this was his kite.

What a lucky, lucky kite this was turning out to be!

“Can you climb that high?” he called up to me.

“Sure!” I called back. And up, up, up I went!

The branches were strong, with just the right amount of intersections to make climbing easy. And the higher I got, the more amazed I was by the view. I'd never seen a view like that! It was like being in an airplane above all the rooftops, above the other trees. Above the world!

Then I looked down. Down at Taeyeon. And suddenly I got dizzy and weak in the knees. I was miles off the ground! Taeyeon shouted, “Can you reach it?”

I caught my breath and managed to call down, “No problem!” then forced myself to concentrate on those blue and yellow stripes, to focus on them and only them as I shinnied up, up, up. Finally I touched it; I grasped it; I had the kite in my hand!

But the string was tangled in the branches above and I couldn't seem to pull it free. Taeyeon called, “Break the string!” and somehow I managed to do just that.

When I had the kite free, I needed a minute to rest. To recover before starting down. So instead of looking at the ground below me, I held on tight and looked out. Out across the rooftops.

Then I began to notice how wonderful the breeze smelled. It smelled like … sunshine. Like sunshine and wild grass and pomegranates and rain! I couldn't stop breathing it in, filling my lungs again and again with the sweetest smell I'd ever known.

Taeyeon called up, “Are you stuck?” which brought me down to earth. Carefully I