Chapter 16
The alarm on my phone went off at four-thirty. I was already awake, had been for twenty minutes, lying in the dark and listening to the rain tap against the cabin roof. It was light rain, a May misting, the kind that would burn off by mid-morning if the clouds broke.
I dressed in layers. Work pants, a long-sleeved shirt, the new canvas jacket I'd bought at the hardware store in Forks. Boots that had finally broken in properly after weeks of walking my land.
I made coffee in the dark, drank half a cup standing at the kitchen window, watching the sky lighten in the east.
Claire had mentioned the date two weeks ago. First Flush Harvest, she'd called it. The first picking of the season, when the tea plants put out their new growth. She'd said it casually, not pushing it too hard on me despite how important it was.
"Next week, that's when we start, if the weather holds."
The weather had held. Barely.
I poured the rest of my coffee into a thermos, grabbed my work gloves, and headed out.
The path between my property and the James Farm was familiar now.
I could walk it in the dark, and I did, picking my way through the woods while the sky lightened from black to charcoal to the dull pewter of a Pacific Northwest dawn.
The tea hedges came into view in the early light.
Ten acres of them, planted in careful rows that followed the contour of the land.
Camellia sinensis. Her father had spent two years getting them established, babying them through wet winters and dry summers, waiting for them to mature enough to harvest properly.
He'd died a year before his long bet would finally pay off.
I found Claire already in the hedges, a harvesting basket strapped across her chest, working in the gray pre-dawn light.
She wore jeans and a flannel shirt and a Mariners ball cap pulled low against the mist. Her hands moved with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done this work before, though I knew this was her first real harvest.
She looked up when she heard my boots on the wet grass. She didn't seem surprised. A small smile crossed her face, tired but genuine.
"You came."
"You mentioned the date."
"I mentioned a lot of things. You remembered."
I shrugged. "Good memory for some things, bad memory for others. My ex-wife's birthday, for instance. Forgot that three years running."
"Maybe that's why she's your ex?" she teased.
"One of several reasons."
Claire straightened up, pressing a hand to the small of her back.
"You still want to help? I wasn't sure if you were serious when you offered."
"I was serious."
"It's hard work. Long hours. Not much glory."
"I've done hard work before. Never been much interested in glory."
She studied me for a moment in the growing light. Whatever she was looking for, she seemed to find it. She nodded once and gestured for me to follow her to the small shed at the edge of the field.
Inside, the shed smelled like motor oil and goat manure. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with equipment I didn't recognize. Claire pulled down a contraption that looked like a hedge trimmer mated with a vacuum cleaner.
"Handheld electric tea picker," she said, holding it up. "Dad bought these from a supplier in Japan. They're designed for small operations like ours."
She showed me the components. The trimmer head at the front, with its curved blade designed to cut the tender new growth without damaging the plant.
The collection baffle behind the blade, a fabric chute that funneled the cut leaves into a basket that hung below.
The battery pack that strapped to your belt.
"You want to take just the top two leaves and the bud," she explained, demonstrating the motion. "That's where the flavor is. The new growth, the stuff that's light green and tender. You leave the older leaves, the darker ones. They're too bitter."
She took me to the hedge and ran the trimmer across the top of a nearby plant, the blade humming softly. Leaves dropped into the collection chute, tumbling down into the basket. Quick, efficient, not a wasted motion.
"You angle the blade like this." She adjusted her grip. "Not straight across, but following the natural shape of the hedge. You want to harvest, not give it a haircut. The plant should look the same when you're done, just shorter."
I took the trimmer from her hands, feeling its weight. Maybe eight pounds with the battery. Not heavy, but eight pounds got heavy after a few hours. I positioned myself at the end of a row, mirrored her stance, and made my first pass.
The blade bit into the tender growth. Leaves fell into the chute. I watched them tumble down, green and fresh and wet from the rain.
"Little shallower," Claire said, watching. "You're taking some of the older growth."
I adjusted. Tried again.
"Better. You've got the motion. Just keep it consistent."
"Yes, ma'am."
We worked in silence after that. The sun came up behind the clouds and the tea hedges emerged from the mist in neat rows stretching toward the treeline.
I fell into a rhythm. Step, sweep, step, sweep. The hum of the trimmer, the soft rustle of leaves falling, the quiet presence of Claire working one row over.
There's an intimacy to shared physical labor. You learn someone by how they move, how they pace themselves, how they handle the minor frustrations of dropped tools and cramped muscles.
Claire worked steadily, never rushing, never flagging. She'd been doing this since before I arrived and showed no signs of stopping.
I tried to match her pace, finding my rhythm within hers. The rows shrank behind us, harvested, and the baskets filled with tender green leaves.
DJ appeared around seven, materializing out of the morning mist like a small ghost. He wore rubber boots that were slightly too big for him and a jacket that was slightly too small. Eight years old and already carrying himself like someone who understood work needed doing.
"Mom said I could help before school."
Claire looked up from her row. "You eat breakfast?"
"Grandma made eggs."
"Then grab a basket. You know what to do."
The boy did know. He'd done this last year on the first experimental plants, Claire had told me. Helped with the trial harvest even though he was only seven, moving between the rows with a small basket, picking up the leaves that missed the collection chute, checking for damage on the plants.
DJ worked without being told what to do. He moved with careful concentration, his small hands gentle on the tea plants. When his basket filled, he carried it to the collection point and emptied it into the larger crates, then came back for more.
He didn't talk to me. Didn't ignore me either, just acknowledged my presence with a quick glance, the way you acknowledge a piece of furniture that's been moved to a new spot in the room. Noted and accepted. Not yet familiar, but wanting to be.
Around eight, Claire called a halt. DJ had to get ready for school. Bessie Anne would drive him into town.
"You did good work," Claire told her son.
"I know. See you later, Mr. Harmon."
"Have a good day at school, DJ."
He walked back toward the farmhouse without looking back. Claire watched him go, a quiet pride filling her eyes.
"He's a good kid," I said.
"He's had to grow up fast."
"Seems like he's handling it."
"Some days are better than others. He's out here on his own, pretty much. Did you grow up with siblings?"
"No. I was an only child, just like DJ."
"Do you and your ex-wife...?"
Her voice trailed off, cautious of stepping into personal territory.
"No," I said, filling the silence. "No kids. I wish we did, but it never worked out."
"Sorry to hear that." She lowered her eyes and turned back to the hedges. "Come on. We've got another four hours before lunch."
We worked through the morning. The clouds thinned but never broke, keeping the temperature cool, keeping us comfortable in our layers. My shoulders started to ache around ten. My lower back joined the complaint around eleven. I didn't slow down.
Claire noticed anyway.
"You can take a break if you need one."
"I'm fine."
"You're grimacing."
"I do grimace. It's a character trait."
She laughed at that. It changed her face, making her look younger and lighter. The laugh faded, but something of it stayed in her expression. She went back to work. So did I.
By noon we'd finished the first section. Eight rows, maybe a quarter of the total harvest. The collection crates were full of tender green leaves, ready for processing.
Bessie Anne had lunch waiting on the porch. Sandwiches and potato salad and a pitcher of iced tea made from last year's trial harvest.
"Sit, sit," she said, waving us toward chairs. "You've been out there since before I was awake. You need to eat."
I sat. Claire sat across from me, close enough that I could see the exhaustion in her face, the dirt on her hands, the small leaf fragments caught in her red hair.
She looked beautiful.
Bessie Anne settled into her chair with the careful movements of someone whose joints ached on cool days like this one.
"This reminds me of when Claire was a girl," Bessie said, passing the sandwiches. "We used to have her friends over at the cabin for sleepovers. Remember that, honey?"
Claire smiled. "I remember."
"I'd fill up Thermoses with hot chocolate and send them down the path. You girls would stay up all night, giggling and carrying on."
"We'd take sleeping bags and flashlights and pretend we were camping in the wilderness."
"You were camping in the wilderness. Just with hot chocolate and a bathroom."
Claire laughed again, softer this time. "We spent all night giggling about boys. Every single sleepover. Different boys each time, but always boys."
"You liked the big, athletic ones," Bessie said. "Even then."
"I had terrible taste. I was obsessed with a boy named DJ in my homeroom class. Couldn't stop talking about him. Drew his name in my notebooks with little hearts around it."