10. Molly
Friday evening,I close the farm shop down at six and pedal home. The Catskills are gorgeous and comfortable, even in early summer. Biking back to Bedd Fellows is slightly uphill, though, so I am sweating by the time I roll into the driveway.
Just like she’s done every day this week, Baabara bleats at me from her pen. Ethel is out on her porch and waves to me. “Molly, come have some wine.”
Well, I won’t refuse that offer. I park my bike and climb the stairs to the front porch. A book sits on the table next to her, a tasseled bookmark swinging, and a wineglass rests on the arm of her Adirondack chair, beads of condensation glistening on its surface.
“Go on and pour yourself a glass.” She nods toward the front door.
Inside, I find Colleen at the big kitchen table, laptop and paperwork in front of her. I greet her and open the fridge, finding a bottle of Chardonnay on the door. I pour myself a glass and then offer one to Colleen.
“Yes please,” she groans, rubbing her eyes. “I’m trying to get all my work done so I’ll be free this weekend to help with the strawberry pickers.”
“You’re a teacher, right?”
“Yup, kindergarten.”
I pour the second glass and carefully set it near her laptop. “Tell Gran I’ll be out in a bit,” she says absentmindedly, her focus already back on her work.
I relay the message to Ethel, who tuts. “Poor girl works too hard. And on her salary. The pay they’re giving teachers these days is shameful.”
“Definitely,” I agree. I sip my wine and sigh. It’s cold and crisp, absolute perfection.
“By the way, you’re invited for dinner on Sunday night. Everyone’s invited. I thought it might be nice to celebrate the end of the weekend harvest with an enormous meal.”
“Sounds great.” I’ve always been jealous of big families. For as long as I can remember, it’s been my dad and me, so dinners are super quiet and usually eaten in front of the TV. I wonder if “everyone” includes Alex. “Can I bring anything?”
Ethel waves the question away. “Absolutely not. Now, did you make any progress on your book today?”
We’ve been chatting every morning about our books, among other things. I tell her I only managed to read a few more chapters between customers. Ethel reads too, but not the same type of books I do. She reads a lot of non-fiction, whereas I get bored if there’s not a romance plot. I tell Ethel about my book club.
Eventually, Colleen joins us, gulping down a big swig of wine and slumping into her chair.
“What are we talking about?”
“Books,” I say, and Colleen immediately brightens. We compare our favorite books and scandalize Ethel with our talk of aliens, shifters, and dukes.
Once my glass is empty, I bid them both good night and return to Vaniel.
* * *
Another weekend of strawberry selling passes. When the berries on the bushes thin out, we are forced to turn people away. Ethan puts a piece of paper over the strawberry sign that says SOLD OUT.
We count up the money and help the vendors pack up. Lia and Ethan discuss the profits with hushed tones and worried looks on their faces. Ethel disappeared in the afternoon to escape the heat and prepare dinner. Colleen and I are out in the field putting netting up over the strawberries to protect them from birds when Ethel calls out to us. “Almost done?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Colleen shouts back. “Ethan, Lia, you hear that?”
Ethan’s shout comes out of the barn where they are putting tables and chairs away and tidying up the bathroom. “Yup.”
Fifteen minutes later, our hands are clean and we’ve gathered in the big house. Colleen pours what looks like lemonade, adding fresh mint leaves as garnish. Ethan grabs one before Colleen can shout “hey” and he chugs it. He gives her a grin when she glares at him. “Thanks, Collie.”
She sticks her tongue out.
Siblings are weird.
My ex, Oscar, came from a big family: two sisters and three brothers. We dated for a little over a year in high school and had been friends before that, but they never warmed up to me. I always felt like an outsider, never quite getting the jokes, and not knowing how serious to take everyone. It didn’t help that Oscar’s oldest sister really didn’t like me. Every time I was over at their house, she complained about me being there. It wasn’t enough that I’d been in their lives for years, I still didn’t belong.
Thinking about it makes me nervous, but it’s not nearly as rowdy here as when Oscar’s family got together, with their six kids, most of them teens. Here it’s just Colleen and Ethan, two adult siblings. I like them both, and I like Lia and Ethel.
This’ll be fine.
We sit at the table. It’s big enough for eight, but since there’s only five of us, we take the chairs at one end, Ethel at the head. There’s a big serving bowl in the center filled with leafy greens. Platters on the sides have salad ingredients: hard-boiled eggs, bacon, tomatoes in shades of red and yellow, cucumbers sliced perfectly thin, croutons that are warm from the oven. If we ever ate croutons when I was growing up, it was the kind that came in a bag.
“I have stomach troubles,” Lia explains to me. “It’s a lot easier for us to do serve-yourself family meals.”
“Cool,” I say, and we dig in. I load my plate up with a pile of salad and veggies and douse it with a poppyseed dressing. I’m starving.
We’re all quiet for a bit as we eat. The lemonade is sweet and refreshing, perfect for washing down a summer salad. The tomatoes are unlike anything I’ve ever tasted.
“This is so good,” I tell Ethel after I swallow a big bite. “Especially the tomatoes.”
“Thank you, I grew them myself.”
My eyes round. “You did?”
“I grew or made almost everything. Not the eggs, those are from Udderly. The bacon came from one of the local farms, and the goat cheese is from the Price Chopper.”
My eyes travel over the spread again. There’s a lot here. “The croutons?”
“Baked from sourdough I made yesterday.”
“Butter,” I say, thinking for sure that she didn’t make it.
“Churned it myself.”
“What?” I say, my voice all high-pitched. “How do you do that? Isn’t it exhausting?”
“In a stand mixer. Set it and forget it.” Ethel looks so pleased with herself, and I love that for her.
“Dynamite in the kitchen, and you have a green thumb,” I say. “Where do you grow it all?”
“I have a garden off the side of the house. You can’t see it when you drive by because it’s between Baabara’s house and ours.”
I lift a sprig of basil to my nose and inhale. It’s so good.
“Now I grew that downstairs.”
“Downstairs?”
“Gran has a garden in the basement with grow lights and aquaponics,” Ethan says. “It’s mostly for herbs.”
“Would you like to see it after dinner?”
“Heck yeah,” I say. I know nothing about gardens or seasonal produce, so I ask lots of questions. But eventually I get around to the one that’s been bugging me since we sat down.
“Where’s Alex?”