Wishtree(16)

Often Maeve would sit at the base of my trunk and write in her journal. Now and then she’d read passages aloud. She spoke about the Irish countryside fading into fog. She spoke about her family she’d lost. She spoke about her secret hopes and fears and longings. She had love to give, and no one to give it to.

Maeve adored early mornings, when the world was bathed in mist and the sun was still a promise. She would lean against my trunk and close her eyes and hum a tune from her childhood.

One day, the first day of May, Maeve joined me at dawn. To my surprise, she reached up to my lowest bough and gently tied a scrap of blue-striped fabric in a careful knot.

“I wish,” she whispered, “for someone to love with all my heart.”

That was my first wish. And the beginning of many more.





33


As the weeks passed, the piece of fabric on my branch drew many comments.

Some of the folks in our neighborhood, the ones from Ireland, would nod knowingly and smile. To them, Maeve would simply say, in her lilting voice, “That’s my raggy tree. She’s not a hawthorn, but she’ll do just fine.”

People who’d come here from other lands—and there were many of them—would frown at the rag, or even reach up to remove it. Maeve would warn, “Don’t you be touching my wish, now.” Patiently, again and again, she would explain how in her old home, leaving wishes on a raggy tree was a time-honored tradition.

Now and then, people would ask Maeve what she’d wished for. She’d tell them the truth, with a sigh and a wry smile: “Nothing much. Just someone to love with all my heart. Nothing much at all.”

Sometimes people would laugh. Sometimes they would roll their eyes. “A wish on a rag won’t bring you love, dearie,” they would say.

But usually, people gave Maeve a kind smile, a squeeze on the arm, a knowing nod.

And then they, too, would ask if they could add a wish of their own.





34


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.