Daddy was working on butter beans when I got outside, tossing the picked pods into a bucket with a quick snap-snap-snap. Without looking up at me, he pointed down the row a ways, to a section he hadn’t reached yet, and I dropped down into a squat and started feeling through the bean plants for the fat green pods, the ones that were just ripe enough but not so old their beans had already lost that buttery softness. A box of fresh-picked butter beans would hardly last a day out at the stand, they were that good.
Neither of us talked. Me and Daddy had always had something special—sometimes, before Mylie came along and Grandma and Grandpa Kelly moved to Alberta, before the worry wrinkles took up permanent residence on Daddy’s face, the two of us would sit on the back porch step and look out over the farm fields, and he’d put his arm around my shoulder and squeeze and call me his best little girl. We used to sit there while he helped me with my homework, or quizzed me on interesting math problems he knew I’d like, or told dumb math jokes that made us both laugh till we nearly cried.
But all year he’d been quieter than usual, constantly rubbing his forehead like he does when he’s tired and walking around like he carried a fifty-pound bag of Kelly Family Farm wheat over each shoulder.
“Daddy, here’s some advice,” I said, forcing my voice to sound cheerful. “At a job interview, always tell them you’re ready to give a hundred and ten percent.” I paused for effect. “Except if that job’s for a statistician.”
Daddy grunted but didn’t even look up. I shrugged away the tickle of a drop of sweat making its way between my shoulder blades.
There wasn’t anything I could do to take away Daddy’s stress about the farm, but maybe I could at least help him feel easier about Mama.
I scooted down the row, pulling my bucket of bean pods after me, my thoughts twisting around all the ways I could help Mama out this summer so she could rest more. The closest grocery store was more than halfway to Alberta, so she’d have to drive us, but what if I told her she could sit in the car and read while I took Mylie into the store and bought the groceries?
I could do more cleaning around the house, too, but I had a feeling that if I tried that, Mama would just follow right along after me, doing things the “right” way. There was a reason most of my chores were outside—Mama was awfully particular about cleaning. It was okay if I loaded up the dishwasher, or cooked a little as long as I was extra careful to have clean hands and never touch the food I was cooking, but things like scrubbing counters and toilets and windows were Mama’s special responsibility. Daddy told me once, a long time ago, that it was part of Mama’s sickness; that making sure everything was sparkling clean was the one thing she could do to feel a little in control when everything inside her was going wrong.
I took a deep breath and stood up, stretching out my legs, which were sore from all that squatting. Daddy and I had picked the whole row of butter beans clean without saying hardly anything to each other. The silence was thick and heavy all around us, like the heat and humidity that pressed into my skin until all I wanted to do was stick my whole self in the refrigerator to get some relief.
“Think that’s it for this morning,” Daddy said, picking up both our buckets in the same great big hand. “Nothin’ else ripe enough to harvest again just yet. There ought to be a crop of watermelon, but all the ripe ones have come down with disease this week.”
His face was gleaming with sweat and there was a streak of dirt across his forehead, where he’d rubbed it with his fingers. “You want a ride over to the stand on the tractor, Dell?”
“Sure,” I said. There were only a few acres between the farm garden and the highway, but any walking in this heat sent dizzy swoopings through my head. I followed Daddy to where the John Deere was parked, its green paint turned yellow from all the dust and pollen caked onto it. I climbed up behind him and held on around his waist, trying to ignore the fact that even through his T-shirt I could feel how sweaty he was.
Then again, he was probably thinking the same thing about me.
We were nearly out to the road when a blue sedan pulled into our driveway. Thomas had come out to help a couple times already, usually staying far out on the farm with Daddy, but every now and then coming up to the kitchen for a glass of icy tea sweetened with Quigley honey, or a plate of cold watermelon. He was easy to talk to, even for me—and despite the fact that he was getting ready to start his last year of high school, he treated me like an adult.
Just as the engine on the Bradleys’ car turned off, the tractor gave a shuddering thump and stopped dead in the driveway. Daddy banged his fist down on the steering wheel and swore so loud and dirty it made me jump. I’d never heard Daddy use so many bad words all in a row, and almost never heard him yell like that. I swallowed, feeling that sandpapery sensation of a dry throat on a hot day, and hopped down as quick as I could.
Daddy followed me, pacing around to the front of the John Deere and throwing up the hood. He said another dirty word and brought his fingers up to rub at his forehead, leaving a smear of grease across his skin to match the smudge of dirt there.
Thomas got out of the car and called over to us. “Everything okay, Mr. Kelly?”
“Not really,” said Daddy, his face tight and stretched like he was having to work every second to keep his anger in. “Know anything about fixing tractors?”
Thomas laughed incredulously. “You know I’m a city boy, Mr. Kelly. I wouldn’t know a tractor if it bit me. Didn’t even need a riding mower at my old place.”
Daddy sighed, kicking at one of the tractor wheels. “Knew I should’ve gone ahead and replaced the belt when Anton said to. This is the last thing I need right now. You go on to the stand with Arden, Della. I’ve gotta go back to the house and call Anton to ask him to order the part I need.”
“You sure?” I asked, watching Arden wave at me out of the corner of my eye. After I’d skipped out of my shift at the farm stand Saturday, Arden had tried to call twice yesterday afternoon, but I’d made sure I wasn’t around when the phone got picked up. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say about the things she’d seen Saturday morning, after Mama had left Mylie to cry in her crib. I didn’t want Arden doing her best to convince me my plans weren’t going to work out.
Daddy tried to smile, a sad little thing that only made it halfway up his mouth. “This tractor won’t be going anywhere under its own steam till it’s got a new belt,” he said, taking a big deep breath and raking his hands through his hair. “You go on with Arden. I’ll go tell your mama what happened.”
He turned and started walking down the driveway to where Thomas waited, but I stayed there by the tractor for just a minute, watching him go. Before, while we were picking the butter beans, he’d looked weighed down by a hundred pounds of his own wheat, his shoulders hunched and his head heavy.
Now he looked like he was carrying all the wheat in the world.
I stopped by the mailbox at the end of our drive on my way to the farm stand, more out of habit than anything else, but smiled when I saw that the only thing in there was a little pink postcard from Grandma Kelly.
Dear watermelon girl, it said in Grandma’s old-fashioned loopy writing. Hope you’re not forgetting us out there on that farm. Come visit soon. XOXO. I tucked it into the pocket of my shorts, wishing Grandma was there right that moment to give me one of her grandma hugs. We could all use a good grandma hug about now, I reckoned. Even though Alberta was only an hour away, it felt like we hardly saw Grandma and Grandpa anymore, with Daddy so busy all the time and Mama trying to keep up with Mylie’s mischief.
Arden’s face was pinched and worried looking when I made it to the stand. Before I could even flop down into the empty camp chair, she’d pounced.
“You tell me this instant what’s going on, Della Kelly. I’ve been worried sick about you all weekend. How come you didn’t answer any of my calls?”
I didn’t answer, just grabbed a Dixie cup and filled it up with water from the ice-cold cooler sitting on the table.
“Della. Come on.”
I sighed and sat down, holding my cup so tight in my hands that the paper sides squeezed together and some of the water sloshed onto my palms.
“I think my mama’s getting sick again.” I felt heavier than ever, like saying it out loud had made it somehow more real than before. I swallowed hard and looked out across the highway, heat rising up from the pavement and creeping its way under the awning to wrap us up in its arms. “Really sick. Like—like a long time ago.” I knew that Arden remembered the bad time just as well as I did.
“Oh, Della, really?”
“It’s been bad. But you can’t tell anyone at all. You have to swear to me. I don’t want anybody sending Mama back to the hospital.”
I stuck my pinkie out, waiting for her promise.
Arden’s forehead scrunched up. “Are you sure, Della? If she’s getting bad like last time, maybe your daddy needs to take her to the doctor.”
“He tried. She won’t go.”
“Well then . . . maybe—maybe the hospital is where she needs to be, for a while, if she’s that sick.”
“No. Don’t tell anyone.” I scraped at the dirt under my fingernails. “She needs more than that this time. More than just a Band-Aid. She needs something different, something that can heal her all the way, forever.”
“Is that possible?”
“It has to be. Don’t you get that? If it were your mama, you’d feel the same way. I have to find a way to fix her. I have to. Just promise me you won’t tell anybody.”
Arden sighed, but nodded, and joined her pinkie with mine. “I guess so,” she said, but the worry stayed right there between her eyebrows. For one wild moment, I thought about taking it all back, thought about going and knocking on Miss Amanda’s door and telling her what was going on with Mama myself.
But I didn’t. Miss Amanda and Mr. Ben were nice. Nicer than nice. They were practically my other parents. And they’d helped us plenty when Mama went to the hospital. But even then, all they’d been able to do was to mind me when Daddy had to go visit Mama. There wasn’t anything more they could do now, except maybe pester Mama about going to those doctor’s visits she kept skipping, and stress her out even more so she got worse faster. Plus, Miss Amanda and Mr. Ben had plenty of other things to take care of: their own kids, their own farm.
And Daddy—he was worried just like I was, I knew. But he had other worries than just Mama, with the farm, and now the tractor breaking, and all his watermelon plants coming down with disease.
The one person who needed Mama healed more than anybody, the one person who couldn’t bear the idea of turning thirteen next year and becoming a teenager without a healthy mama to guide her, the one person who didn’t have anybody else to worry about—that was me. It was up to me now.
It was all up to me.