Part I: The Assignment
Mrs. Patterson announced the family tree project on a Tuesday.
Tiana was sitting in the third row, her notebook open, her pencil in her hand, when the words landed like stones in her stomach.
"You'll need to create a visual representation of your family," Mrs. Patterson said, her voice bright, her hands moving as she explained. "Include names, dates, and—if possible—photographs. You'll present it to the class."
Photographs. Tiana's pencil stopped.
She raised her hand. Mrs. Patterson's eyebrows went up—Tiana rarely spoke in class.
"Yes, Tiana?"
"Can I—is it required? The photographs?"
Mrs. Patterson tilted her head. "It's encouraged. Why do you ask?"
Tiana felt the eyes of her classmates on her. She kept her voice steady. "I don't have photographs. Of some of my family."
She saw a few kids whisper. She didn't look at them.
Mrs. Patterson's face softened. "You can use names and dates only if you need to. But I'd like you to try to find something—even a copy, a drawing. Family is important to document."
Tiana nodded. She didn't say anything else.
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After class, she waited until the room was empty. Mrs. Patterson was at her desk, grading papers, her glasses low on her nose.
"Mrs. Patterson?"
The teacher looked up. "Tiana. What is it?"
Tiana stood in front of the desk, her hands behind her back, her heart beating too fast. "I need to do the project without photos. I can't—I don't have them."
Mrs. Patterson set her pen down. "Tiana, I understand it might be difficult, but part of the assignment is to—"
"My mother died." The words came out flat, the way she'd learned to say them. "My grandparents died. I don't have pictures of them. I don't have pictures of my father's family. I don't have anything."
She stopped. Her throat was tight. She didn't cry. She wouldn't.
Mrs. Patterson was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "What about your stepmother? Could she help you find—"
"I don't want her help." Tiana's voice was sharper than she meant it to be. She took a breath. "I just want to do the names. The dates. That's all I got."
Mrs. Patterson looked at her. There was something in her eyes—pity, maybe, or understanding. Tiana didn't want either.
"All right," Mrs. Patterson said. "Names and dates only. But you'll still need to present."
Tiana nodded. "I will."
She walked out of the classroom before Mrs. Patterson could say anything else.
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Part II: The Refusal
That evening, Susan found her at the kitchen table.
Tiana had spread out her notebook, a pencil, a list of names she'd started. Her mother. Her grandparents. Richard. Susan. Tyler. Chloe. She stared at the names, and her hand wouldn't move.
"I heard about your project," Susan said, coming to stand beside her. Her voice was light, the way it always was when she talked to Tiana alone. "I have some photographs you could use. Of your father's family. Of Chloe and Tyler when they were small."
Tiana didn't look up. "I'm just doing names."
"But pictures would make it so much nicer." Susan reached out to touch Tiana's shoulder. "I could help you organize it. We could make it really special."
Before Tiana could answer, Malcolm was there. He came into the kitchen without a sound, his face set, his eyes on Susan's hand on Tiana's shoulder.
"She got it," he said. His voice was calm, but Tiana heard the edge underneath. "She don't need help."
Susan's hand lifted. She looked at Malcolm, her smile flickering. "I was just offering."
"She heard you."
They stood there for a moment, Susan and Malcolm, and Tiana felt the air between them tighten. Then Susan stepped back.
"Of course," she said. "If you change your mind, Tiana, let me know."
She walked out of the kitchen. Tiana heard her footsteps in the hall, the sound of a door closing.
Malcolm sat down across from her. He looked at the names on the paper, at the way she'd written Diane DeAndre and stopped.
"You okay?" he asked.
She shook her head.
He didn't say anything. He just sat there, and after a moment, he picked up the pencil and wrote Ruth DeAndre and James DeAndre below their mother's name.
"You don't gotta include Susan," he said. "Or Tyler. Or Chloe."
"If I don't, she'll notice. Mrs. Patterson." Tiana looked at the names. "She'll ask why. And I'll have to explain."
Malcolm's jaw tightened. "Explain what?"
"That you're my only real family." Her voice cracked. "That everybody else is just… there."
He reached across the table and took her hand. "Then put them down. It don't mean nothing. Names on paper don't make a family."
She held onto his hand, and she let herself breathe.
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Part III: The Memories
She worked on the project alone that night.
Malcolm was in the room with her, Maya asleep in the bed, but he was quiet, letting her work. She sat at the desk they'd pushed into the corner, a piece of poster board in front of her, the list of names beside her.
She wrote Diane DeAndre first. Her mother's name. The letters felt heavy, the way they always did when she wrote them. She added the date of birth—she knew it from the locket, from the photograph Grandma Ruth had kept—and then she stared at the space where the date of death should go.
She wrote it. March 12.
Her hand was shaking. She set the pencil down.
The memory came without warning. Her mother on the bedroom floor, her hand stretched out toward the dresser, the orange bottle beside her, the pills scattered like seeds. Maya in the bassinet, crying. Malcolm's voice on the phone, calm and flat, telling someone that his mother wouldn't wake up.
She pressed her palms against her eyes.
She thought about Grandma Ruth. The kitchen floor, the bacon burned black on the stove, her grandmother's hand reaching for something she'd never hold. The way the house had gone silent after, the way Grandpa James had fallen in the hospital hallway, his hand on his chest, his face the color of ash.
She opened her eyes. The poster board was blank except for the names. She picked up the pencil again, but her hand wouldn't move.
Malcolm appeared beside her. He didn't say anything. He just put his hand on her shoulder, and she leaned into him, and they stood there in the quiet, the names of the dead on the paper, the names of the living waiting to be written.
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Part IV: The Filling
She finished the tree over the next two days.
She wrote Richard Steven with a line connecting to her mother, and then another line to Susan Steven. She wrote Tyler and Chloe under Susan and Richard, and she stared at the way their names sat there, neat and tidy, like they belonged.
She wrote Diane DeAndre and under it, Malcolm, Tiana, Maya. That was the trunk. That was the only part that felt real.
Malcolm helped her with the dates. He remembered things she'd forgotten—Grandpa James's birthday, the year Grandma Ruth was born, the year their parents had married, though neither of them knew the month.
"Does it matter?" Tiana asked, looking at the empty space.
"No," Malcolm said. "But if you want it filled, we can leave it blank."
She left it blank.
When she was done, she held the poster board up. Names and dates in her handwriting, branching out from a center that held her mother, her grandparents, her father, her stepmother, her half-siblings, her brother, her sisters.
"It's not a tree," she said. "It's a map of people who left."
Malcolm took the board from her and set it on the desk. "It's a map of people who made you. That's different."
She didn't know if she believed him. But she let him hold her, and she didn't argue.
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Part V: The Presentation
The day of the presentation came too fast.
Tiana stood at the front of the class, her poster board in her hands, the faces of her classmates turned toward her. Mrs. Patterson was in the back, her pen ready, her face neutral.
Tiana looked at the board. Her mother's name. Her grandparents' names. Richard's name, Susan's, Tyler's, Chloe's. Malcolm. Herself. Maya.
She cleared her throat.
"This is my family," she said. Her voice was steady. "My mother, Diane DeAndre. She was born in 1980. She died in 2013."
A few kids shifted in their seats. She didn't look at them.
"My grandparents, Ruth and James DeAndre. They raised my mother. They died in 2013."
She pointed to Richard's name. "My father, Richard Steven. He lives in this house with his wife, Susan, and their children, Tyler and Chloe."
She pointed to Malcolm and Maya. "My brother, Malcolm. My sister, Maya."
She stopped. There was nothing else to say.
Mrs. Patterson smiled. "Very straightforward, Tiana. Thank you."
Tiana walked back to her desk. She sat down, her hands flat on her thighs, and she felt something tighten in her throat. Not tears. Something harder. Something that had been there since she'd written her mother's name on the poster board, since she'd left the space for the month of her parents' marriage blank.
The class clapped. She heard it, but it felt far away, like something happening to someone else.
She sat in her seat, and she didn't let herself cry.
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Part VI: After
After class, Chloe found her in the hallway.
"I saw your project," Chloe said. Her voice was quiet. "It was cool. The way you did just names. It was… honest."
Tiana looked at her. Chloe's face was open, her eyes careful, and for a moment, Tiana didn't know what to say.
"Thanks," she said.
Chloe nodded. She started to walk away, then stopped. "My mom would've wanted you to put pictures. I'm glad you didn't."
She walked off before Tiana could answer.
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At home, Tiana left the poster board on the bed. She went to the bathroom, washed her face, stood in front of the mirror and looked at her own eyes.
She thought about her mother. About the way Diane had brushed her hair on Sunday nights, the way she'd danced with her in the living room, the way she'd promised a real home. She thought about Grandma Ruth, her hands rough and warm, pressing the locket into her palm.
She thought about the names on the board. Diane DeAndre. Ruth DeAndre. James DeAndre. Three people who had loved her. Three people who were gone.
When she came back to the room, Malcolm was there. He was standing by the door, his arms crossed, his face hard.
"Tyler tried to come up," he said. "I told him to go back to his room."
Tiana nodded. She didn't ask what Malcolm had said. She didn't need to.
She looked at the poster board on the bed. Richard must have passed by while they were out—she could see where the board had been moved, the corner turned down.
"He saw it," she said.
Malcolm looked. "He say anything?"
"No."
Malcolm picked up the board and leaned it against the wall, the names facing in. "Then it don't matter."
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That night, Tiana lay in bed, the room dark, Maya asleep beside her. Malcolm was on the floor, his back against the wall, his eyes open. She knew he wasn't sleeping.
"Malcolm."
"Yeah."
"You think Mama would've been proud? Of the tree?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "She would've hung it on the fridge."
Tiana smiled. It was small, but it was real.
She closed her eyes. She thought about the names on the board, the ones she'd written and the ones she'd left blank. She thought about the space where her parents' wedding date should have been, the space where her mother's life should have been longer.
I miss the days when I was young and I was just a kid. I miss the days when I didn't know what any of this meant.
The words came to her, quiet, from somewhere she didn't recognize. She let them sit in her chest, heavy and warm.
She reached for Malcolm's hand. He took it, and she held on.
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