A solution began to materialize. I asked, “Do you think I could do a couple of two-month internships? My grandma asked me to help with her business. So I could do some research for her, work for a painter, write grants for Peter, and… maybe… possibly shadow you?”
“Let me give you some more unsolicited advice.” Sybille gave me a meaningful look. “Make it easy for me to hire you.”
I swallowed, feeling stupid for being so presumptuous. Why did I suggest working for her? A sheen of sweat began to form on my forehead, and I twisted my hands together. What would Mom do? Or my grandparents? Or Jackson? None of them would back down. Then, I knew. Like Sybille, they would never ask for permission. They would propose.
Refusing to give up what I dearly wanted because I was afraid of rejection or feeling silly, I straightened my back and declared, “I would love to work for you in whatever capacity you needed on a project or two. I work hard and learn fast. So if it’s the treehouse or the stone installation or anything else, I am game. My end goal is to learn as much as I can about construction so that I can be the kind of architect who designs the kinds of things you build.”
“You know, Peter told me that you’d remind me of myself,” Sybille said seriously, leaning back in her chair. “And I think we’ll be able to work something out.” Pulling open her desk drawer, Sybille grabbed a business card and handed it to me. “Make sure to e-mail me tomorrow first thing. Word to the wise: Do your homework. Tell me what project you want to work on and why.”
Grandma Stesha had assured me that opportunities would spring up almost magically when I was on the right track, that there would be an alignment of what I needed and what I was offered. That had sounded too New Age-y for a reformed skeptic like me. Until now. Suddenly, I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“What?” Sybille asked, smiling as though she could read my thoughts.
“I would never have believed this would happen,” I said, holding her business card like a lottery ticket. In a way, it was: The riches I’d been given were incalculable. “That I’d be happy to have a gap year.”
“I’m one of those people who believe that everything happens for a reason. And that everything works out, but in ways you’d never predict.” Sybille leaned toward me. “Peter didn’t reveal much about your circumstances, but I can tell you that I couldn’t go to college right after high school, either. My family didn’t have the money.”
“And look at you.”
“Yeah,” Sybille said, and she scanned her office before resting her gaze on the expansive water view outside. “Life is good, and I would never have believed that I would be sitting here.” She smiled at me. “Something tells me that your treehouse sanctuary is going to be very special.”
The immensity of how far I’d come, too, struck me hard then. Here I was, stardusted with opportunities just weeks after despairing over my college-less future. Everything—every decision, every heartbreak, every action—had led me to this moment. Not only because of Dad and his affair but because I had listened to my grandparents, learned from my mother, and leaned into the future I wanted.
Laughing again, I shook my head. Even if I were given the chance for a complete redo of the last few weeks, I wouldn’t change a thing. The slightest smidge of hesitation, a single retracted choice—all of that would have altered this landscape of opportunities. The sun warmed my face as I stood to shake Sybille’s hand, rough and strong. Outside, the sun greeted me even brighter when I pushed through the brushed-steel door of the construction company and strode to the street corner.
Not caring who was staring at me from their office windows, shrugging off the amused smirks of strangers in their cars, I twirled in the middle of the crossroads because here was the beauty of the moment: I got to choose the path I would take.
Back at home, Reid was sprawled on our borrowed couch, writing in his journal as usual. From the kitchen, Ginny’s mom exclaimed, “Dis-gust-ing!” Whatever commentary she was providing about my dad—what else would provoke that gut-deep response?—her obvious repulsion was fueling Reid’s frenzied writing. He frowned, hunched over his journal, writing in all caps. He wasn’t just telling himself a story, I realized. He was escaping our reality. At eleven, where else could he go but in his imagination?
“Reid,” I said, but his fingers tightened painfully around his pen, and he refused to look up from his page to acknowledge me.
Our furniture was once again in transit, being trucked back from New Jersey, since Dad had decided to stay in the Manhattan apartment rather than the house. The deep indentations in our carpet here could have been made from the weight of invisible memories pressing down on us. Why was Reid here among the ghost images of our living room instead of upstairs in his bedroom? But then, had I spent much time in my own bedroom since our homecoming? Hadn’t I felt shrouded with our old life there? Instead, I found peace in my sanctuary—my treehouse.
A clean start—that’s what I wished for Reid and Mom, for all of us. So I marched across the living room, flung the bay windows open, and invited the early-autumn wind inside to cleanse our home. As I gazed out at the unobstructed view of the Puget Sound, I noticed for the first time a birch tree, limbed back brutally. Two years ago, Dad had groused about losing the view because of that damned tree, and on a weekend when Mom was out of town, he had hired an arborist to prune it.
“Hey, Reidster,” I said now, shaking his feet lightly. He refused to respond. So, bad big sister, I tickled his soles. He growled. I said, “Come on, let’s go to my treehouse.”
That unprecedented invitation got his attention. “Really?” He leaped off the couch in his excitement, and guiltily I knew that I could count the number of times he had been inside my treehouse. Reid had been a toddler, barely walking, when my parents remodeled the house. Carving out a private space for him hadn’t even been a consideration back then.
We raced down the path to the treehouse, Reid reaching its spiral staircase first. He looked over his shoulder for my permission to continue. When I grinned at him, he walked carefully up the treads, as though I’d retract my invitation, and paused for me at the locked door. I dug the key out of my pocket and handed it to him. His look of pleasure was my reward.
Because I had left the windows cracked open overnight, the treehouse smelled like the surrounding forest, mysterious and verdant. Though empty of furnishings or decorations, my treehouse felt so welcoming, Reid settled himself on the hardwood floor with his journal. He was that eager to escape into the world he was creating. I hurt for him because I didn’t want him to flee his life, to write himself into a happier ending. I wanted him to embrace his new life and the promise of all the good things to come. What he needed was the same reassurance Mom had given once upon a time to an insecure boy who grew into his name: Cameron.
“Wait,” I said.
Once, a few weeks ago, my brother had nearly begged me to reassure him that everything would be all right. I couldn’t provide that comfort to him then, too afraid to tap into my sixth sense, too afraid to step out of the circle of our dad’s approval.
For the first time I could remember, I openly courted a vision. Sitting cross-legged with my eyes shut, I slowed my breathing. It felt odd, disconcerting, doing this when I had forcibly and physically stopped myself from seeing anything for a decade. Instead of the aching sensation that hurt me whenever I halted any dreaming, my body lightened and floated.
My breathing eased, and I relaxed even further.
I saw: a young man, his eyes hidden behind highly reflective sunglasses. Gregorian chanting, deep and pensive, gives way to wild cheering. Then, a voice: “In the midnight still, the Oracle of Delphi has been stolen….”
“Sunglasses onstage. Not a good look,” I told Reid, who listened to my every word with rapt attention.
“Comic-Con,” he whispered, eyes shining. “It’s got to be.”
“Comic-Con?”
Reid frowned as though I were the biggest idiot on earth. Um, excuse me, who jus
t read one potential future for him? But I kept my mouth shut so that he could enjoy his superior knowledge this once.
“Only the biggest comic-book convention of all time,” he said. “Was it a novel I was launching? Or a game?” His eyes widened. “Or a movie?”
“I don’t know. It was more of a feeling and just that one image of you.”
“Well, look again!”
“I’m not a Magic Eight Ball that you can shake on command.”
“Oh,” Reid said as his eyes unfocused and he stared off into the space of his vast imagination. I could tell he was writing in his head, spinning some new idea that my vision might have uncorked in him.
For the first time, I could understand why Grandma Stesha’s tours to sacred spaces were so oversubscribed that some people waited more than a year to snag a spot. Who wouldn’t want a little comfort when every decision we make, every friendship we foster, the relationship we commit to alters our life in some unforeseen way? Even the colleges we choose—and don’t choose—change our fate.
The knowledge that I had helped Reid felt more than good, but powerful. No wonder Grandma Stesha said her calling was to heal people. How could I ever question my calling to create sanctuaries for people when I got so much joy from watching Reid jot a note as though whatever unformed idea he had was so good, so luscious, he had to plant its kernel before he forgot?
That space to create—Virginia Woolf had written about how women needed a room of their own. Grandpa George had created an entire retreat for Grandma Stesha. In the same way, Reid needed a greenhouse for his ideas. He deserved much more than the tiny hobbit house we had left behind, unfinished, in New Jersey. I glanced around this life-size treehouse and knew I could provide a true nesting place for my brother. Now.
Whether I ended up at Columbia or the University of Washington or another college next year, I would be embarking on my own adventure away from home. And afterward there would be graduate school and global travels, where I’d collect ideas for new sanctuaries.
So as Reid threw himself back into his story, I quietly worked the key to the treehouse off my key ring. Despite my stealth when I slid the key beside his hand for him to find later, Reid glanced up at me. “What?”
“You are the keeper of the treehouse now, Reidster,” I declared as majestically as any oracle could. Just as I had promised my mother that she would always have a home here, I wanted Reid to know he would always have a private space of his own here, too. “And forever.”
“Really?”
“Really. Just remember, I want to be super tall in your book or game or whatever you’re creating. And I want to wear motorcycle boots. Because I am the Oracle of Delphi.”
Awed, he asked, “How did you know?”
“I just did.”
That night, I woke at three, knowing precisely that I had to write to Sam Stone and tell him that his one question had transformed my life.
“Do you always do what everyone tells you to do?” he had asked me in his ice cavern of a corner office, hawk eyes probing me.
The truth was: I had.
Sitting up on my air mattress, my blanket falling to my side, I thought about how I had repressed my own dream of building treehouses. In my heart I had always yearned to design skyscapes, not skyscrapers. Now I leaned over to grab my computer from the floor and powered it on. For a moment I sat before the blank screen, fingers poised over my keyboard. I closed my eyes and welcomed the rush of my lifelong love for small spaces to fill me.
Then I wrote.
Dear Mr. Stone,
If a moment can change a life, then the fifteen minutes with you rearranged me.
You were right.
I have been a “me too–yes, sir–whatever you want” girl my entire life. My decision to go to Columbia was made to please my dad. So was my so-called career aspiration to create corporate offices.
I love intimate spaces, whether treehouses or urban fills or small rooms within large homes. You said in your book that your mission is to create buildings that fill people’s spirits. I share that, but in a different way. Creating sanctuaries where people can refuel and recharge—that is my architectural vision and mission.
And that is why I’ve decided to do something radical because it is time for me to do more than think for myself, but to develop my own creative palette. I am taking a gap year to define what I like in architecture and what, specifically, I want to build. I intend to be as precise and intentional as you are with the buildings you choose to create.
Fired with passion, I wrote about how I believed tiny homes were the answer to conserving resources and creating community. Based on my interviews with Sybille and Peter, I was committed to custom-designing more than treehouses, but an entire sanctuary of them. My fingers flew as I typed, putting words to my vision. Each treehouse would be highly crafted, completely unique. And every last one of them would exude the safety of home and the healing power of sacred space.
Done, I set my computer back on the floor and walked to my window to ponder my words one last time before I sent them. Sam wasn’t the only person I had to tell. There was my father. And, in the future, the skeptics. Not everyone would love or respect what I created. Not everyone would approve of my small scope. My father had made his opinion about my tiny aperture quite clear. But these treasure-box spaces, these love nests, would be world-significant to the ones who needed them. All I had to do was remember Reid’s delight as he clutched the key to his adopted treehouse.
Wouldn’t my clients’ pleasure be what truly mattered?
And wasn’t it my personal responsibility to craft a life where my passion merged with my power?
The Oracle of my life had spoken, the words wise and true.
I would tell Dad soon.
Maybe that was all we had to do: listen to our inner voice, the one that warns us when we’re on the verge of a bad decision, the one that encourages us to jump even when we’re shaking, the one that says open your lips and let the truth soar where it will.
I made my way back to my computer, settled it on my lap, and added one final note to Sam Stone direct from my heart: Thank you for prodding me past my fears.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Bouquets of cheery balloons festooned the white columns flanking my uncle’s house, where Dad was spending the weekend with us, his first in Seattle since we’d been back. It was Labor Day weekend, and Dad was determined to celebrate my uncle Adam’s birthday with overly bright fanfare, as if to signal to Reid and me that we were still his family despite the impending divorce. I appreciated that gesture. Most of all, I appreciated Dad’s committing to visit us at least once a month while he resided on the East Coast. So did Reid. As soon as Mom parked in the long driveway, my brother flew out of the car, leaving his overnight bag in the backseat with me.
“Reid!” Mom called, but he was already ringing the doorbell. Slumping back in the driver’s seat, she sighed. “I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”
“It’s better for him to feel comfortable here, Babycakes,” Grandma Stesha said. She had insisted on accompanying us, even though it was a three-hour round-trip commute from the island to Seattle and back. I was glad for that. It hurt to imagine Mom making the trek home by herself.
The massive front door opened, and Dad was there on the wide porch, hugging Reid close to him. Another barnacle of resentment sheared off me; I could see and feel Dad’s love for us.
“Okay,” Mom said. She nodded resolutely at me in the rearview mirror. “Good luck talking to your father. Are you sure you don’t want me with you?”
“I’m sure,” I said. I didn’t need Mom to be my messenger or my henchman. What Dad needed to know, I would tell him myself.
Despite her death grip on the steering wheel, as if she were physically restraining herself from following me, Mom nodded. I noticed she didn’t drive away, though, but waited in the driveway. I appreciated the safety net of her presence, too, because as I walked toward Dad, my emotions clustered in
a messy knot of anger, disillusionment, resignation, and gladness. Where before I might have drowned in these conflicting emotions, now I knew them for what they were: the mile markers to healing and forgiveness.
Unlike Dad, who had preemptively ended his marriage without giving Mom a second chance, I planned to remain through the weekend and all the other ones when he was in town, despite any confusion I felt. I would stay not just because he was my father. Not just because I didn’t want to become one of those bitter people who were desiccated with blame. Not just because I refused to drown in the pain of his past actions. I would stay because I loved him. So Dad was right in a way he had never intended: Some relationships truly are worth the effort, regardless of how difficult they are.
“Guess what? I figured out how to pay for your college,” Dad said, beaming at me. So thrilled to share his solution, we stayed on the front porch. “You’ll be able to go to Columbia, where you want, no worries at all.”
“How?” I asked, as excited as Dad, lulled for a moment back to his vision for my life.
“You can work at Muir and Sons.” He looked at me expectantly when I stared at him, speechless. Unable to continue meeting his eyes, I slid my gaze to the Ionic columns with their opulent scrolls flanking the front door. Our gargantuan Grecian temple in New Jersey dwarfed my uncle’s. Dad continued, “My brother said you could work as an office assistant every summer, Christmas vacation, and spring break, and then our mother will cover the cost of college.”
How easy would it be to capitulate with that succulent carrot of full college tuition dangling before me? Just work at the family business, the very business that Dad had done everything he could to escape—moving us first to Lewis Island, then to Manhattan—so he wouldn’t be under the thumb of his mother, wouldn’t be compared to his rock star of an older brother.
What would be the price of that?