“Nothing to do with it?” Violet repeats. Her face breaks out into a smile, which creates at least a thousand more wrinkles in her perfectly wrinkled face. “My dear girl. Did you really think you could outrun your history? It will follow you everywhere.” She looks pointedly at me. “It has followed you everywhere.”

Um.

Is it just me or are things beginning to feel a bit ominous? I edge nervously toward my mom. I need her to start explaining. Now.

“This has nothing to do with her,” my mom insists.

“And yet you named her Willow,” Violet says. She’s traded in her sweet cadence for something stronger, her voice is forceful, unyielding.

They stare each other down in silence and all I can hear is my heart beating hard, filling in the empty space around me. Finally Poppy steps forward, pointing to something over my shoulder. “Look there,” she says gently.

I whirl around, and when I see it, my feet nearly lift off the earth.

It’s an enormous willow tree. It’s old and regal, with long branches that drift gracefully to the ground. Sunlight filters green and gold through its leaves, its trunk beautifully twisted and gnarled. I’ve looked at pictures of hundreds of willows, and none of them have come even close to this one. She looks like the queen of them all.

Poppy’s words come back to me. Five generations of women named after beautiful things from this very garden.

I’ve just found my beautiful thing. This tree is my namesake.

“Mom!” Energy shoots through me, and it takes everything not to dart over to the tree, make sure it’s real. Tears prick my eyes, surprising me. It’s just a tree. But it’s my tree. It’s proof that at some point my mother named me after an object connected to this place. I’m not sure what that means, particularly because she looks ready to bolt, but it means something. I know it does.

“You named me after a tree here?” I whisper.

Her eyes dart away from mine. “Your name has nothing to do with that tree. Or the…” She hesitates.

“Tell her, Rosey Posey,” Violet says. “A Bell woman has to know her past if she’s going to plan her future. Otherwise, she’s lost.”

The word lost hits me like a gong, its impact reverberating through me. I spin on my heel to look at my mom. “Tell me what?”

“No.” My mom’s voice breaks in, crashing my certainty. “Willow, come on. We’re leaving.”

“But…” My head is throbbing now, my brain desperately trying to untangle what is happening.

“You know that isn’t how it works, dear,” Poppy says in her gentle voice.

My mom shakes her head, hard. “It’s the way it will work for us. Come on, Willow. We’re going to the hotel. Aunts, we’ll see you later. Tomorrow?”