Home Entertainment Game Technology Advertisement Part 2: For eight years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, “She comes from a good family, don’t embarrass us”; Dad added, “Just disappear for the weekend”; I did; then one weekend, I never came back; it took them four years to find out where I went.

My parents stood farther back.

Invited.

Mitch did not come.

His choice.

The pastor asked me to say a few words.

I looked at the tree.

Then at the people.

I could have told the whole story.

I didn't.

Some truths do not need to become public entertainment simply because they are finally public facts.

I said:

“When this tree was purchased, the person buying it believed it was for someone who had died.”

Avery smiled through tears.

“I was the person it was for.”

A murmur moved through the crowd.

“I was also the employee who selected it.”

A few people laughed.

Good.

“I wrote on the care tag:

Graft is good. Water deep the first summer. She'll bloom.”

I touched the bark.

“I didn't know I was writing to myself.”

Silence.

Then:

“For years, people around me treated disappearance like proof of peace.”

“If I wasn't in the room, nobody had to explain me.”