Olivia threw her pencil down in frustration.

"I can't do it!"

From across the room, Henry looked up from his writing.

"What can't you do, Peanut?" he asked.

"The family tree for school," she said. "It's too hard."

He cracked a smile and put his computer aside, before coming over to take a look. She showed him a family tree worksheet, with blanks for siblings, two parents, and two sets of grandparents.

"See how there's only two blanks?" she said, pointing at the second line from the bottom. "And that's Daddy and Mom. But then I also have another mom, and so do you, and so did Roland. Snow and David are your grandparents, but then Snow was also Mom's step-daughter. And what about Mr. and Mrs. Gold? I know they're family. Are they my aunt and uncle? Or grandparents?"

Henry chuckled. "They're my grandparents, but not yours. They're just …" he shrugged. "Family."

Olivia sighed. "Why does it have to be so hard?"

Henry was quiet for a moment, considering. Then he got an idea and smiled.

"It's only hard because our family isn't a tree," he said. "Some families are like trees. Like … your classmate, Philip. His family is like a tree. He has his mom and dad, a little sister, two sets of grandparents, all nice and simple. But not all families are like that, and it's okay when they aren't. Some families are more like patchwork quilts, or like gardens."

The idea made Olivia smile.

"So you mean we're like flowers and not like branches?" she asked.

Henry nodded. "That's a good way of putting it."

She beamed. "I know exactly what I'm going to do!" she said, and before he could even react, she had jumped up off the sofa and was running up the stairs. She came back a few minutes later with a box of colored pencils and a blank sheet of paper. He watched as she drew one little flower after another, sometimes in clusters, sometimes apart. Robin Hood was there, labeled as "Daddy", a dandelion armed with a bow and arrow. And their mother was represented by some kind of red flower whose petals seemed to be on fire. The three of them were little daisies, two of them growing near Robin's dandelion, but Henry's flower was a bit to the side, near another flower labeled "Henry's mom Emma", which Olivia had drawn in yellow and red. Zelena's flower had leaves like a weed, but bright orange petals that were strangely pretty. Belle, of course, was a red rose, growing side-by-side with a thorny plant meant to represent Mr. Gold, and their daughter Clarisse bloomed in between them as yet another rose, this one with yellow petals. Henry was surprised by how many people his sister included: Snow and Charming, both Neals, Maleficent and Lily, most of the Merry Men, and even "Grandma Cora", who scowled up at them and held a heart in one of her leaves.

Along the top, she drew puffy little clouds and a sun, and she wrote: "My family is a garden."

"There," she said, putting her pencil down. "That's much better."