Good Dirt

Prologue

One Month Before

“S hhh,” her brother says.

She’s giggling. She can’t help it. She tears off pieces of sticky tape and hands them over. Just as her brother finishes with the tape, their mom calls from outside. One day, she will remember them dashing out of the room together, fingers gummy with adhesive, and, despite everything, she will smile.

“Okay, okay,” says their mother. “Let’s take this photo.” She fiddles with her camera. “You can’t show up late on the first day of school.”

But her brother wants them to see what he’s done.

“Mom, I want to take the picture indoors,” he says. “Can we?”

“But it’s so nice out here,” their mom says. Behind her, the pansies and asters are in bloom. The rest is all green against the black-blue of the Sound. This, too, she will remember. The beauty of that first home. How she thought she would never want to leave.

“Let’s just do this,” their father says. She looks up at her dad and reaches for his hand. They follow her brother inside and into the study. When their parents see the old stoneware jar, they laugh. Great big belly laughs. That’s what her brother was going for. He’s put a baseball cap over the top of the jar, and on its front he has taped a handlebar mustache cut out of paper and colored in with a black marker. On the table next to it, he’s stacked a couple of textbooks.

She and her brother haven’t forgotten what the jar represents. Who made it. Where it comes from. How very old it is. Their father, and his father before him, have made sure of that. But in their home, they don’t treat the jar like it’s an antique. They treat it like a member of the family. Her big brother takes up his position next to the jar and leans in close for the snapshot.

“Say cheese!”

Now it’s her turn. Then their mother sets the camera on a tripod and they take a group photo.

And thank goodness for the memory.

Because you never know, do you?