Mama and Daddy didn’t say a single word to each other all through the rest of that day. They walked around and past each other, their silences bubbling up into thick walls that kept them separate even when they were in the same room, never meeting each other’s eyes or softening the hard lines that were their mouths into something like a smile.
Daddy had disappeared onto the farm not long after breakfast, the tractor sending up clouds of dust behind him. By the time Mylie and I got back in from picking in the garden after breakfast, something that took me three or four times as long without Daddy’s help and with Mylie’s interference, Mama had gone into her room and shut the door halfway. When I peeked through the crack, I saw her in there, lying on the bed, holding a book but not turning any pages, like she’d given up on being a mother or a wife or anything else at all.
The power was back on, though, making the ceiling fan above Mama’s bed lift her hair up in little wisps. At least that was something.
I got Mylie dressed and kept her with me all day, thinking dully that at least I’d gotten my way and Mama was resting. Not that it would do anyone much good if she kept throwing those pills away every morning, slipping them into her pocket like they weren’t the biggest blessing that had ever come into any of our lives.
We were kept busy at the farm stand that morning, a steady stream of tourists and locals coming by. Between that and trying to keep Mylie out of the produce, Arden and I hardly had a moment to ourselves to really talk, which was a good thing. I didn’t know how I could explain to her about Mama’s pills—but I didn’t know how not to.
We were halfway through our shift when the Bradleys’ blue car pulled off to the side of the road and Miss Lorena and Thomas got out. Miss Lorena waved as they walked over to us.
“I’ve got to tell you, Della, that your daddy sent Thomas home last week with some Kelly farm butter beans, and they were the best I’ve ever eaten.” She closed her eyes and smiled, like she was remembering the taste. “I decided this morning that it was high time Thomas and I came by to see what other offerings y’all have got.”
I grabbed the back of Mylie’s shirt before she could tear out into the road. “All this stuff’s from our farm or the Hawthornes’. That side over there’s certified organic, too. Actually, all of it’s pretty much organic right now, ’cause Daddy’s been changing things over on our farm this year, but only the Hawthornes have got that thing from the government.”
“Mmm,” said Miss Lorena, running her copper-colored hands over a row of watermelons. There weren’t as many as we normally had this time of year, with Daddy’s melons fighting the anthracnose so that we barely had enough to eat ourselves and only the Hawthornes’ melons ready to sell, but the ones we did have were shining and green and sweet as ever. “It even looks beautiful. They don’t have this kind of deliciousness in the middle of the city, let me tell you! Thomas, want to carry one of these to the car for me? How do I pick out the nicest one, Della?”
“Best way is to lift a couple of them and see which one feels heaviest. That means it’s got the most juice. You can thunk them, too, but that’s harder if you haven’t got practice listening to them.”
Thomas picked up three different watermelons in a row, looking so nervous I wanted to laugh, but he finally settled on one and carried it back to his mama’s car.
“There is absolutely nothing better than cold watermelon on a hot summer’s day. Watermelon is my very favorite fruit, I think.” Miss Lorena gave a little half-sad sort of laugh. “When I was pregnant with Thomas—back when dinosaurs roamed, of course—it was in midsummer, and all I ever wanted to eat was watermelon. I was so hot and queasy all the time, it was the only thing that ever sounded good. Mr. Bradley used to joke that he wasn’t sure if I was getting round because of a baby, or because of a baby watermelon.”
“He sounds nice,” I said. “And funny.”
“Oh, Della, he certainly was.”
“Watermelon’s my favorite, too,” I said, even though all my good watermelon memories seemed to be shot through right now with the bitter taste of Mama’s watermelon-seed obsession. “They’re like the taste of summer.”
“The taste of summer, indeed. And you said you weren’t good with words!” Miss Lorena cocked her head to one side. “I think you might have a poet’s heart, Miss Della Kelly.”
Mylie toddled over to the watermelons, wrapping her arms around the closest one and going red in the face with the effort of trying to lift it off its table. “Yum, yum!” she crowed. I jumped up.
“Put that back, baby, before you smash it to pieces!” I sank back into my camp chair and tried to hold her between my legs, but she squirmed and wriggled until she managed to break free.
“Seems like you got your hands full,” said Miss Lorena as Mylie shot across the canopy and filched a green bean from its basket.
“Tell me about it,” I said, but I let Mylie keep the green bean. She liked to chew on them and then spit the chewed-up mess all over the ground, but even that was better than her dumping out the basket or pushing her fingers into the peaches or any of the million other things I’d had to stop her doing so far this morning.
“Hey, Mylie baby,” said Arden in a singsong voice, “Come play a game with me?” She held out her hands to Mylie.
“Little stinker,” I said as Mylie shot past me and into Arden’s arms. Just about everyone alive loved Arden, Mylie included.
As if they had appeared in response to my thoughts, five ladybugs flitted down from the canopy overhead and landed—one on each of Arden’s hands where they wrapped around Mylie, three on the arm of my camp chair. Arden looked up at me and smiled, a secret smile that made me smile back.
Lucky ladybugs. For the first time since that morning, life didn’t feel like it was pressing so hard against my forehead that it was giving me a headache.
Miss Lorena set a row of paper bags on the card table next to the till. “All right, ladies. I’ve got some butter beans, some green beans, a couple of bell peppers, and some blueberries.” She looked at Arden and me in mock seriousness. “I confess I was tempted by the zucchini, too, but Anton’s garden seems to be nothing but squash right now.”
“Him and everyone else in town,” said Arden. “Tourists are the only ones who ever stop for the zucchini. Trust me. People around here always say if you aren’t careful you’ll find zucchini stuffed into your mailbox, gardeners are so desperate to get rid of it.”
“How much do I owe, with all these things and the watermelon?”
I closed my eyes, running through the numbers, then gave her the total.
“I’m thoroughly impressed,” Miss Lorena said as she handed me her credit card and I swiped it through the card reader on Mr. Ben’s cell phone. “I can’t do mental math to save my life. Thomas doesn’t fall far from the tree in that regard.”
“It’s the truth,” said Thomas as he scooped up his mama’s bags. “You started doing quadratic equations yet, Della? Every time I get to that part in SAT prep, it gives me a headache, I swear.”
I nodded. “I’m in the advanced math class, so we started algebra last year.”
“I’d be jealous if advanced math didn’t sound like the worst thing I’d ever heard of.” But I could tell from the way Thomas was holding his mouth extra-serious that he was laughing on the inside. “See you soon, Della.”
I ducked my chin down so he couldn’t see me smiling.