Our weeping willow belonged to the Ianellis. Until the year I turned five, our tree lived across the creek behind our yard in an empty grassy field. Then the Ianellis descended with their extended family; they built three houses surrounding one driveway. 

Our father called the three houses the “Ianelli Compound.” Our mother shushed him and told him to stop being rude. One night at dinner, he delivered a lengthy speech on the definition of compound: how it could be a noun, a verb, or an adjective. He taught linguistics and composition at the college and often bored my three older brothers and me with his lectures. He droned on about compound’s different parts of speech and its ability to be used with or—even!—without an object. My oldest brother, Sandy, closed his eyes, let his head fall back, and began snoring. My second oldest brother, Benji, mimed shooting himself through his temple, and Ollie clutched his chest, gasped, tumbled off his chair, and collapsed onto the braided wool rug.

Our father lifted his eyes to the ceiling and muttered, “Savages. Every one of you.” He pointed to me. “Except Millie, of course. We should send you to boarding school to preserve your IQ, to keep you from ruin by these monsters.”

Sandy and Benji, revived from the dead, shouted, “The monsters won’t allow it!” They scooped me up under my arms, knocking over my chair—which landed on Ollie who blurted a bad word—and dragged me toward the back door. Sandy yelled, “You’ll never take her alive!”

Our mother stood. “Don’t you dare leave this table without clearing your dishes. Sanders, Benjamin, let go of your sister and get back here. Oliver, watch your language and pick up Millicent’s chair.”

Ollie, still in character, wheezed and dragged himself to standing as he righted my fallen ladderback. We cleared the dishes and scraped dry chicken sprinkled with tasteless red powder into the trash. Sandy had told us that some mothers cooked side dishes. He’d eaten dinner at friends’ houses and had potatoes, rice, vegetables. Our mother cooked only one thing for each meal. Baked chicken. Spaghetti with olive oil and pepper. Fish with green flecks as innocuous as the red dust on the chicken.

My brothers and I escaped out the back door. Our parents made no attempt to stop us. They described their parenting style as “leaving us to our own devices.” But they insisted that the teenagers, Sandy and Benji, leave their devices—phones—in the pale-green pottery bowl on the kitchen counter during the day over the summer. Ollie would get his phone when he turned twelve. He described the wait as cruel and unusual.

Halfway down the hill, Sandy crouched so I could hop onto his back.

“To the tree!” Ollie charged toward the water’s edge. Across the creek, the soaring weeping willow’s dangling branches swayed in the breeze; its slender leaves whispered to us.

Benji scowled. “They don’t deserve that tree.” Once the Ianellis had moved in, the older boys—who our father said should have been away at college—would yell at us from the bottom of our willow, threatening trespassing as a punishable offense.

In the past few weeks, they had been building a new garage too close to our willow. From our side of the creek, we’d watched the backhoe gouge the deep brown earth, thick with roots. The spinning cement mixer spilled dark, wet concrete into the square foundation. A week later, three generations of Ianellis propped up long wood boards and began sawing and hammering the garage’s skeleton into place.

Now, every day, we had to wait until the Ianellis went inside for their dinner before we could hop across the wide, flat rocks in the creek.

The breeze picked up and Benji gazed into the sky. His brow furrowed and he shook his head. “That doesn’t look right. The sky’s almost green.”

We raised our eyes to the clouds. The color looked off to me too. I’d ask Benji to help me research what might cause such a thing on the computer that evening.

We jumped from rock to rock across the water until we reached the log on the far side. Needing something stable so that we could scramble up the bank, we’d dragged the stump into the creek last summer. Benji had recently grown worried that the log had weakened. We stood on the slippery stones, waiting, as he tested its stability each time we crossed. That evening, he bounced on it, then crouched and poked his fingers into the rotting wood.  

“Stay off this spot,” he said. “Tomorrow, we need to find a replacement.”

Sandy pointed upstream. “There’s a downed pine that way. It should work.” He went on to explain that the pine may or may not have been on our property, but he felt sure it wouldn’t be missed.

Sandy reached out his hand, hauled me up the creek bank, and we raced into the jungle of hanging willow vines. Once enclosed within its lush umbrella, I climbed the colossal trunk first, with Sandy close behind to help me settle into my tree fork. My brothers scrambled up, egging each other on until the branches bowed under Sandy’s weight. He bounced on a limb, holding tight to the one above, and pretended he was terrified he’d lose his balance. “Oh, no! Oh, nooooo!”

Ollie yelled, “One day you’ll fall for real and be killed dead! We’ll leave you for the Ianellis; you’re too heavy to carry!”

Wind gusts swirled the sweeping willow, and thunder rumbled.

From the ground, one of the Mrs. Ianellis yelled at us, “Come down here right now! I’m calling your parents. You have no business sneaking over here. There’s a storm coming!”

I sighed my disappointment, began my descent, and was the first to reach the dusty dirt beneath our tree. Three Ianelli brothers emerged from the closest house.

They flanked Mrs. Ianelli and squinted into the blowing branches as my brothers swung to the ground.

Sandy eyed the brothers—older, broader than he was—and took my hand. “Sorry, Mrs. Ianelli.”

“Young man, take your brothers and,” she nodded to me, “this sweet little one home.”

“Oh, she’s not sweet,” Benji said. “Trust me.”

The biggest Ianelli boy pointed across the creek. “We don’t trust any of you! Go home! Or we’ll make sure you never…” Wind and the distant boom of thunder drowned his spewed threats.

We ran. Fat raindrops pummeled our heads. I fell in the creek, and when Ollie tried to help me, he fell too. Benji and Sandy acted out dramatic falls, and we splashed around until lightning cracked, zigzagging across the darkened sky.

I jumped from the buzz of electricity. We clambered out of the water and raced across the slippery grass toward the house. Sandy stopped, held out his arms with palms up, lifted his face to the rain, and spun in circles. Benji and Ollie joined him.

“Get in the house!” our mother called, grabbing the flailing screen door. “Now! And take off those wet clothes!”

The next boom and crash sent me running to her. In the downpour, my brothers peeled off their drenched T-shirts and whipped them at each other until our father roared, “Inside! Now!” He turned to me. “Millie, close your eyes.”

Maybe he worried about me seeing my brothers in various stages of naked, but that was nothing new. My brothers pushed their way into the kitchen with rain-soaked hair, water rolling down their pale chests and backs.

Our mother kept a basket filled with frayed, faded towels near the door, and our father threw them at my brothers. They caught them, dropped one onto the pine floorboards, and began stomping on it. Ollie wrapped his towel around his head, turban-style. Thunder crashed into their laughter and lightning lit the sky. Wind flung our screen door open, banged it closed until Benji latched it.

Our mother and father shared worried glances, but this—like my brothers’ naked strolls from the bathroom to their rooms—was nothing new. Another flash and crack pierced our rare moment of quiet.

Our mother forbade showers because of the lightning, which our father deemed ridiculous but threw his hands up. He wouldn’t argue.

The power blinked out.

“Benji, get the candles,” our mother said. “We’ll play cards.”

Sandy snorted. “I would rather have a tooth pulled with no drugs.”

Benji yanked open the kitchen drawer for the candle supply. “I’d rather kiss old Mrs. Ianelli—the really old one—on the mouth.”

Ollie gagged graphic vomit noises, dropping his wet clothes—splat—onto the floor to add to the effect.

Sandy added his own vomit to Ollie’s. “Millie, tomorrow, we’re going to move you up one fork on our willow.”

Our mother said, “You are not.” She switched on a flashlight. “I found the cards. Hearts?”

Benji and I joined in with our own dramatic retching.

Our father asked, “Why don’t you each take a candle and read a book?”

Ollie took a moment to cough up something especially large. “Be careful where you step. There’s puke everywhere.”

After an hour or so, the storm’s noise faded into low rumbles and distant, flickering light. Wind and rain still swirled around our house, and our mother told me it was time for bed. I had the earliest bedtime. I complained about it a lot but, so far, had no success at making a change. When I went upstairs, my room was pitch black. Our mother stayed with me until I fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke to Ollie shouting from my open door, “Holy crap! Get up! Holy crap! Look outside!” He raced down the hall to Sandy and Benji. I followed him to Sandy’s room, where the three of them stood on Sandy’s bed, looking out the window.

I held up my arms to Sandy. “What’s out there? I can’t see!” He scooped me up, set me on his hip, and pointed to the creek. I couldn’t understand what I saw. “What is that?”

As soon as I’d asked, I knew.

Our willow had fallen into and across the creek. Its bendy branches spilled into our yard and floated in the fast-moving water. Its trunk stretched across the Ianelli’s yard. The willow’s muddy roots reached into the sky, as tall as the Ianelli houses, towering over their unfinished garage.

My brothers leapt from the bed; Sandy dropped me, and my feet hit the floor. We ran down the steps and pushed through the back door. They left me behind, though I pleaded for them to wait, for Sandy to let me ride on his back.

Our willow’s rainforest of yellow-green vines and narrow sardine leaves were strewn over our grass and flowed down the creek’s current. I stopped to touch its highest limbs. Yesterday, they had risen above anything I could have imagined. Yesterday, its whiplike branches had swept the hard, dry ground. Now it was ruined, fallen.

Sandy waded into the rushing water, ignoring our parents’ calls for him to get away from the tree right now. Benji and Ollie followed him in. I caught up at the swollen creek’s edge.

Sandy shouted, “Stay back, Millie! It’s too deep for you!” Our father’s arm looped around my stomach; he lifted me from the overrun bank. I thrashed in his arms, hot tears spilling over my cheeks.

The Ianellis emerged in full force, revving chain saws, swinging axes. My brothers clung to our fallen tree’s branches to keep from being swept away as they crossed the creek’s high, fast water. Once they reached the opposite bank, Sandy puffed out his chest, confronting one of the Mr. Ianellis. Benji held his palms toward another, a “please, wait” gesture. Ollie approached one of the girls and pressed his hands together as if he were praying. The horrible grating of chain saws drowned their words.

Our father handed me to our mother. She set me on the ground, crouched, and hugged me while I cried.

My brothers retreated, shoulders slumped in defeat; Benji’s and Ollie’s eyes, red and wet; Sandy’s, narrowed and hard. Our father went inside to answer the ringing phone. He returned and said he’d spoken to one of the Mr. Ianellis, who said they would have the tree removed. They would take care of the mess.

Though it was sunny and cool, my brothers and I stayed inside all day. They argued about everything. I couldn’t take it, hid in my room on the side of my bed away from the open window. The power didn’t return until that evening. For dinner, our mother cooked eggs in a heavy black pan on the grill. The Ianellis kept their chain saws going and even called in reinforcements to carry logs and brush.

After we’d eaten, our parents allowed us to go outside with strict instructions that under no circumstances were we to get involved in any way as the Iannellis cut and dragged our willow back to their side of the creek.

My brothers and I stood watch, mute.

They burned our willow. That evening, as the sky turned lavender to deep dark blue, they switched off their chain saws and set fire to its branches and leaves. Our mother said it was probably illegal, or at least unethical, because of the smoke. Benji snuck across the creek and tried to convince the Ianellis that the wood was too wet, too green to burn, that they should let it dry for at least six weeks. Our red-faced father burst through the screen door, slammed it shut, shouting for Benji to get back to our side of the creek right that instant. Once he had, Benji grumbled about “basic science.” Our mother shushed him, said not to be condescending.

It took the Ianellis the rest of the summer to clear the tree. They filled in the hole from our willow’s root system with the dirt pile from their garage’s foundation. They shoveled in the dry dirt, full of our willow’s dead and hollow roots. I wondered if they understood what they’d done.

In September, Sandy played JV football every day after school. He was hardly home anymore, but when he was, he thumbed at his phone, texting some girl named Jade. Benji stayed after school too, busy with science fair projects and robotics. Ollie and I rode the bus home together, and he’d race ahead down our long driveway, dump his backpack at the front door, and drop onto the piano bench. He’d play until dinner in the front room that also housed our mother’s sewing machine, her piles of fabric, baskets spilling over with yarn skeins, and her creations in various states of completion, getting ready to be sold.

I’d skipped kindergarten, begun first grade, but was still bored, bored, bored. Our parents argued about sending Benji and me to a school two hours away, about how to pay for it, and who would make the drive. Our willow’s leaves didn’t turn yellow in October. They didn’t fall in November. By Christmas, our parents agreed upon a solution for ways to challenge me. In January, students from my father’s college came to the house, and we’d do science projects and write book reports together.

Smoke ballooned from the Ianellis’ chimneys; they had bonfires and threw beer cans into our willow’s remains.

One day that spring, after my favorite tutor—a deep green ivy tattoo wound around her wrist and forearm—had left and before my brothers had returned home, I crouched on the creek bank. Water rushed from the snowmelt, and I tossed in pine twigs, watched them swim and swirl. Downstream a few yards, a forked dead limb had lodged between rocks. It stuck straight up, pointing to the sky. I inched along the overflowing bank, intending to free it. When I grew close, I spotted golden, pencil-thin twigs sprouting up from the creek’s edge. I counted twelve of them, a few knee-high and two even taller. I ran my fingers over tight, tiny buds on our willow’s babies. They’d taken root along our side of the creek.

Benji came home from his chemistry tutor and showed me how to get around our parents’ controls on the computer. At the kitchen table, I started taking notes in one of the blank journals my brothers had given me for my birthday when Sandy pushed through the door, smelly and sweaty. With all his fingers, he scrubbed my head like he was washing my hair. He bent over my shoulder and read aloud the computer screen, “Complete Guide to Propagating and Growing Weeping Willow Trees.”

I hit pause on the video. “It’s a tutorial. Come outside and see.”

He dropped his bag in the laundry room, banged on the bathroom door where Benji yelled that he was taking a crap, but he didn’t say crap.

Sandy let him know we knew that already and for him to hurry his butt—he didn’t say butt—outside. Benji emerged from the bathroom, advised us not to go in there for a while. Ollie stopped whatever sonata or symphony he was playing, squeezed into the crowded laundry room, and asked what we losers were going on about.

“I’ll show you.” With my elbow, I pressed open the screen door, stepped out onto the still dormant grass, and waited for my brothers to catch up.

THE END