The Letter Tree

She wrote twenty-three letters before the response turned up on a grey Monday. It wasn’t part of the plan, this thick envelope landing on her doorstep.

No one was ever expected to write back.

The first dozen she’d dropped in the mailbox like coins into a fountain. With no name on the front, the majority were tossed aside without thought. One was opened and quickly discarded; her words forgotten as soon as they’d been read.

The next, she hid in a library book. The one after that was set free on the tide. Two were stuck to car windshields only to be mistaken for fliers and left to melt in parking lot puddles. More were left in a playground, on a driveway, and in a Dentist’s waiting room. Another was sent to a long-forgiven foe.

The last letter she mailed to the wildest place of all.

*

Daisy tore a page from her small, black notebook and tucked it under her arm. She was running late. Scrawling the German address on the front, she licked the acrid stamp. Pedestrians streamed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. It was two minutes to five, and she knew the Post Office would never stay open after close. Especially not for her.

A soft jingle announced her entrance. She watched the weary face behind the counter fall.

“Another one?” The strained voice matched the pinched lips.

“Yes,” she said, handing it over. She wrung her hands as the letter was weighed and the postage deemed suitable. The clerk tossed it onto the International pile with scarcely a backward glance.

“How long?” She asked. “How long until it arrives?”

“You’re sending a letter to a tree,” he quipped. “I have no clue how long it takes correspondence to make its way through the forest.”

The chime of the bell filled the space as she left.

She thought about starting another on the bus ride home. She could leave it behind for the next passenger to find on the seat. Or slip it into the driver’s bag before stepping off at her stop. Daisy leaned her head back and closed her eyes. An elbow dug into her ribs, and she shifted into the softness of the stranger on the other side. She never could find words on a public bus.

The stars were turning on by the time she climbed the stairs to her cramped, second-story apartment. Above a faded couch, a map filled the wall with red pushpins marking different places worldwide. Dropping her notebook onto the counter, she added another.

Bridegroom’s Oak, Dodauer Forest, Germany.

It wasn’t far from the Baltic, nestled between five lakes. Daisy pictured the Post Man climbing the wooden ladder, a breeze ruffling its branches as it accepted the offering.

She tipped vodka into last night’s glass and stared at the world until one red pin blurred into another, and she couldn’t tell the water from the land.

*

Chatter bounced over the low cubicle walls and swirled around the water cooler. Daisy hung her head over her keyboard as the noise thrummed at her temples.

“Where’d you rush off to last night?”

She squinted at her co-worker with one eye. “The Post Office.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Daisy. You’ve got to stop with these letters. How many have you sent now?”

“Twenty-three,” she admitted after a pause. “I’ve written twenty-three so far.”

“Exactly,” her co-worker hissed. “Twenty-three pleas for help with no lifeline in return.”

She wasn’t pleading for help, she said, her face crimson. There are eight billion people on the planet, and she only knew a handful of them. “Take the office,” she continued, gesturing at the people walking past, “a thousand people work in this building, and I can name less than 10 of them. I’m not looking for love or even friendship.” Daisy paused, gathering her thoughts. “I guess, what I really want, is connection.”

She met the pity in her friend’s eyes head-on.

“I just worry that no one will ever write you back.”

She waved the worry away with a forced smile and turned back to her work. She dulled the same thought every night, twirling red pushpins between her fingers and waiting for someone to let her know she wasn’t alone.

She’d still be waiting if it wasn’t for a tree and a woman and an unexpected gift.

*

It took two weeks for the letter to travel from one continent to another. And another week to make its way north from Berlin. By the time it arrived at the 500-year-old Oak, it had been marked so many times you could barely read the address on the front.

The Post Man almost tossed it into a hole in the trunk with a handful of others, but something made him pocket it. Perhaps it was the size of the address, almost screaming for attention. Or the slight wobble to the letters.

Whatever it was, he took the letter home that night and handed it to his wife.

After reading it twice, she folded it neatly and fetched a sheet of her own. When the Post Man handed her an envelope to post it back, she waved him away.

This response would need something larger.

*

The clouds were heavy. They hung in grey bunches above the park as she wrote to the mother with two crying children, trying to stay patient. Dropping the envelope into the stroller as she passed, she made her way home to the bottles and the pins and the silence.

As she climbed the stairs, she spotted the letter.

A thick, manila envelope sat outside her door, squat and fat. Her name was scrawled in a foreign hand across the front, stamped over by a German postmark. She picked it up with a shaking hand as the sky broke open above her.

She cleared a space on the counter and dumped out the contents. They were, surprisingly, a single sheet of paper and $20,000 in cash. Stunned, she set the money aside and opened the letter.

It was for her, from a tree.

For fifty years, the Post Man’s wife had listened to the stories of the tree. Lost loves and found lovers. Marriages and broken hearts and people just hoping to have fun. Every year, she said, letters made their way to the Bridegroom’s Oak, opened by travellers looking for love. Her husband cared for the tree as if it were his own child, tending to its branches and whispering to its bark. He often opened a letter himself, scanning its contents quickly before sealing it up again for the next visitor.

It is a tree of love, the Post Man’s wife wrote. And there is no greater way to feel connected than to feel loved.

Daisy set the letter down and picked up the money. Stuck to the front of the thick bundle was a smaller, simpler note: Spread the love.

Reaching for a stack of envelopes, she began divvying up the money.

*

The first man she met looked like his whole life was etched into his skin. Deep lines created roadways across a sun-kissed face. She told him her name; he responded with his story. When he finished, she dried her eyes and handed him a letter. You’re not alone, she said as she left.

Daisy walked all day, trading envelopes for stories.

To the young woman bagging groceries who was late on her rent, and the man at the stop sign with his head in his hands. To the elderly couple arguing on a bench and the woman with the broken umbrella. She surprised the single dad of three with an envelope for each and a teenager shopping for his first date. Eight were given out at the fertility clinic and a dozen more at the hospital. She handed one to her cab driver and another to the construction worker directing traffic.

As the hours passed, she pocketed stories like they were treasures. There were laughter and tears, dancing and hugging. There were shared prayers to different gods and different words to shared songs. With every envelope, she passed on love as if it grew on trees.

When darkness fell, Daisy returned home. She dumped the bottles down the sink and pulled all the pushpins out of the map. Except for one: Bridegroom’s Oak, Dodauer Forest, Germany.

With the remainder of the money, she booked a flight. It was time to meet a Post Man, his wife, and a tree.

THE END

The Bridegroom’s Oak is the only tree in Europe with its own mailing address. Every day, people looking for love mail the tree, hoping to find their match. The Bridegroom’s Oak receives 1,000 letters a year from around the world. It is believed to be responsible for more than 100 marriages.