The House You Pass on the Way by Jacqueline Woodson

this morning I climbed out of bed and saw the snow coming down hard and it dawned on me slowly that it was almost February and that four months have passed without us speaking. And I knew then I needed to sit down and write this. I think about Sweet Gum all the time, and when I close my eyes now, I start remembering that line of trees along the water and imagining them heavy with snow.
    The letter arrived on a cold day in January, after months and months of silence. Staggerlee read it quickly the first time, sitting cross-legged on her bed, her heart beating hard against her chest.
    In my botany class I learned that sweet gum trees are modern-day balm in Gilead. Remember the song Grandma and Grandpa used to sing about the balm in Gilead soothing the wounded soul? When I learned that about sweet gum, I started thinking that’s why your daddy went back there—maybe because to him the place had some kind of healing feel about it. I don’t know. I have study hall fifth period, and sometimes I just sit there thinking. My mind starts wrapping itself around all these crazy ideas.
    Staggerlee read, remembering Ida Mae’s letter—how it had arrived the same way, a surprise in April. She stared at the words, seeing Ida Mae in Trout.
    It’s hard to sit in that study hall and not think about you. And I’ve tried. I sit there with my book propped in front of me and the words start blurring and becoming you standing at the river smiling or you and Creek running fast ahead of me yelling,
    “C’mon, Trout.”
    With the snow on the ground, Sweet Gum and last summer seem ancient somehow, dreamy—like it all happened to someone who wasn’t me. In two months it’ll be a year since Hallique died, but it still seems like last week or yesterday. And some mornings it feels like it happened an hour ago. Me and Ida Mae—I guess we’re something like friends now, and maybe it’s because of Matthew. I guess that’s the hardest part of this letter—the part I haven’t been able to write or call you to say. I don’t know what I thought you’d do or say or think. Me and Matthew started dating back in September. Every time me and you talked back then, a part of me wanted to tell you that I had met a boy I liked. I wanted to tell you about the parties we go to and how it feels to walk down the street and hold his hand. I wanted to tell you about his smile—how when he looks at me, it seems the world just stops moving. But I didn’t know how. Every time we talked, we talked about last summer and we talked about that early morning in your bedroom when you told me about Hazel. I couldn’t tell you then, Staggerlee. I didn’t know how to. And if I couldn’t tell you that, then what could I tell you? It was like you had become Rachel and Rachel had become you. Suddenly I could tell Rachel all about my feelings and I had to keep them hidden from you. Some days I wonder if I’m always going to be hiding something from somebody . . . I hope not. And I figure it’s best to start by not hiding from you anymore.
    Ida Mae likes Matthew—he eats dinner at our house just about every night and Ida Mae says he has the best table manners of any boy she’s ever met. His mama likes me too, I think. She smiles and speaks real sweet to me. Rachel thinks we make a nice couple and sometimes we go out with a few other couples and it’s nice when the girls get off alone and we can talk about our boyfriends. It’s still strange to write “boyfriend.” One day I was sitting in the park alone and I wrote Matthew Loves Tyler in the dirt and it stared back up at me, the words did. They looked bigger than anything, coming up out of the earth like that. And it made me remember that day by the river when I wrote that thing in the dirt. I guess it’s strange for you to see me writing “Tyler.” Matthew likes it—he thinks it’s a pretty name. And the more I write it and look at it, I’m liking it too. I think somewhere inside of me, I’ll always be