  Bethany watched the blood of the sun puddle into the valley. She pressed her forehead against the back window of her father’s 1956 BelAir that sped along Interstate 5. Her vaporous breath emerged and faded with the same cadence as the song on the AM radio. Making an “O” with her mouth she exhaled deeply onto the glass. Bethany took her index finger and carved two dots and a downward curve into the humid blotch creating a face with a frown. It was the last hour of her family’s journey to their new home. A small salt colored church materialized on the red horizon. Bethany’s father exclaimed, “There it is. Our new home!” Bethany took the palm of her hand and rubbed the sad face out of existence. She scooted up in her seat popping her head between her parents in the front to take a look at where they would be living. She was twelve years old and very much still a little girl with her blond hair braided into pigtails. As the church grew larger she could see the parsonage, across the parking lot of the main building.
A large cross stood in the parking lot with a sign that read Calvary Temple. Bethany had hoped something would have stuck out to make this new place interesting. She leaned back into her seat and sighed to herself, “it’s just like the last one.” Bethany jumped out of the car. She flapped her arms like birdwings. Running to the picture window of the house she peered inside. “I can’t believe it,” she yelled back to her mother, “its got the same blue carpeting as our last house!” “Blue is my favorite color,” her mother replied in a saccharine voice. She closed the passenger door. “Honey, check to see if our moving boxes have been delivered at the rear.” Bethany took off around the corner of the house running to a cyclone fence. She flipped the latch on the gate kicking it open and scuffing her black and white saddle shoes. She stepped into the backyard and looked at the back porch. There sat the majority of her family’s possessions packed into cubes of russet cardboard.
She surveyed the boxes reading her mothers looping handing writing: kitchen dishes, picture frames, bathroom, Bethany’s toys and with seeing the last box she ripped open the top to free her belongings. “Sorry guys,” she whispered sweetly, “I hope it wasn’t too stuffy in there.” Spinning around to look over the yard Bethany noticed there was one tree. It’s gnarled branches jutted out in every direction and she looked at it with a little bit of awe.
The tree had leaves that looked like slender emerald hands. Bethany walked up to the tree to inspect it closer in the dimming twilight. She noticed green-tinged purple buds at the bottom of most of the leaves. “Bethany,” her father called out. She jumped around and stood at attention. “Where are you?” “In the back yard,” she sang. She ran back towards the front of the house. “The boxes are here! The boxes are here!” 
