Maya caught the stroller wheel on the raised edge again. The cup in the tray tipped. Cold coffee ran over her hand. Her son laughed from his seat. He thought it was a game.
"Sorry," said Mr. Bell. He stood at his gate with a rake. "That root gets more of the walk each year."
Maya wiped her hand on her jeans. The oak beside his gate was huge. It leaned over the block like an old roof. Kids tied rope swings to it in summer. On hot days, people stopped under it before they crossed the hill.
"The town wants to take it down," Mr. Bell said. He pointed at a bright orange mark on the trunk. "They'd make the walk wide all the way to the bus stop."
Maya looked down the street. A woman in a chair came toward them. She rolled in the road because the narrow spot left no room by the tree. A car slowed behind her.
Mr. Bell shook his head. "My wife and I planted that oak when we bought this house. It was a stick then. Every kid on this block has climbed it."
Maya knew the tree was more than wood. Her son knew it too. He called it the big tree. But she also knew how it felt to push a stroller into traffic for one bad stretch of walk.
That night, the town put two drawings on a board at the park. One kept the oak and left the walk as it was. One removed the tree and built a wide, flat walk.
Maya held her son's hand as he stared at the drawings. Mr. Bell stood near the board with his rake still in his hand. The woman in the chair waited by the curb.
The town clerk set out a stack of blank cards. "We need one choice," she said. "Keep the tree, or make the sidewalk wide."