* * *

I felt the color drain out of my freckled cheeks. Horrified with myself, I sank heavily down onto the shay’s lounge wondering what on earth had possessed me to scream at her like that.

I hadn’t seen my best friend cry in almost ten years. Marti never cried. Not even when she broke her arm at summer camp. Or when her dog died. Or when she left every summer. The last time I’d seen her cry was when her mom died. Since the day she came back to school two weeks later, I’d never seen a single tear in her eyes.

And now.

I’d shouted horribly at my dearest friend in the world and made her cry. I tried to think, to figure out how I could have let loose like that.

I’d just been so afraid for her, and so angry. Angry at what? Angry at her for leaving the house? No. I realized I’d been angry because I knew she was keeping secrets from me.

 

I cleaned up the mess of glass shards and lemonade on the porch and made a batch of strawberry smoothies. With my peace offering in hand, I shuffled nervously down to the water’s edge where there was a weeping willow tree, the only one around for miles and miles, where Marti and I had built a tree house the first summer we came here together.

The tree house was really just a tree with a large board resting between three of its sturdy branches, just big enough to hold two people. Marti had hung all of her old root beer bottles and coke -a-cola bottles along with pieces of mirror and glass from its boughs. Wind chimes and bird feeders hung there too, creating a magical collection of twinkling lights and sweet songs. Marti once said that each piece that hung from the tree was a memory.

  When I got there, she was up in the tree with her head leaning against the faded wood, her eyes closed tight and her hands clasped.

 
  “Marti?” I called weakly, willing myself not to be anxious. “Can I come up?”

Her reply was too muffled to make out.

I swallowed hard. “I brought smoothies.”

She said nothing.

  “Please let me come up Marti. I can explain, sort of.”


  “Oh come up if you want to.” She mumbled, tossing the climbing rope down to me.

I smiled and tugged myself up. Climbing a tree with two smoothies in one hand isn’t easy. I managed to shimmy to the board and deliver the treat. Marti smiled when she saw it.

  “Oh Meg, still offering your friendship bribes I see.” She laughed and took a sip, easing my nerves. I remembered the last time Marti and I had fought. We were seven years old and I’d bought her a teddy bear to say I was sorry. I smiled over the memory. Marti still had the teddy bear.

  “Well, a smoothie won’t last as long.”

 “But it’s twice as delicious.” She said softly, looking up at me. Our eyes met and I knew all was forgiven, if not forgotten.