Akhmet sat at the kitchen table with a big blank paper. 'Papa, what is a family tree?' he asked. Papa smiled and picked up a crayon. 'It's like a puzzle of everyone before us,' he said. He drew a small circle and wrote 'Akhmet' inside. Then he drew a line up to another circle. 'This is me, your Papa,' he said. Akhmet giggled and grabbed a crayon too, ready to add more branches.

Papa drew another circle above his own. 'This is your Grandpa,' he said. 'He loved fishing by the river every summer.' Akhmet's eyes lit up. 'Can we go fishing too?' he asked. Papa laughed and added one more circle. 'This is your Great-Grandpa. He baked the best bread in town.' Akhmet sniffed the air, pretending to smell warm bread. 'That's four fathers already!' he counted proudly, tapping the paper with his crayon.

Papa kept drawing, circle by circle. 'Your Great-Great-Grandpa built wooden boats,' he said. Akhmet pretended to row an imaginary boat across the table. Next came a father who tamed wild horses, then one who planted the very apple tree in their yard. 'That makes six!' Akhmet shouted, jumping up. Papa pointed to one last empty space at the top. 'One more father to go,' he said, handing Akhmet the crayon to finish it himself.

Akhmet carefully drew the seventh circle, the very first father of all. 'Now the tree is complete!' he cheered. Papa hung the paper on the wall beside a photo of their old oak tree outside. 'Just like our tree has deep roots, so do we,' Papa said. Akhmet hugged the paper, proud of his seven fathers standing tall from root to branch, each one part of him.