The Singing Trees

by Boo Walker

What kind of fool was she to think that her love for Thomas was getting in the way? He wasn’t her father, and she wasn’t like her mother. He’d done nothing but support her, and she knew he always would. All she had to do was have faith in him. And in herself. No

a woman doesn’t have to give up and die just because she dared to love.

Over the fall and winter of 1972, Annalisa often caught herself wondering in awe at what love had done to her. How could she not believe in the power of it after what she’d seen it do? It had buckled her and knocked her down and broken her. Love had also lifted her up, though, and saved her from the heartache.

Love could hold you under the water with its grip clutching your neck, your body convulsing into lifelessness, or it could sweep you up and away into an explosion of joy. Love could be a ravenous and passionate need for another human, like she’d felt for Thomas, or it could be equally powerful in that unwavering way that she felt for Celia.

The truth, she thought. The truth will destroy us all over again.