Chapter 13 #2
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s a lot better.” She picks up the limbs and starts across the yard with them. And then looking back over her shoulder, “Do you think over here at the corner of the yard might be an okay place to stack everything up?”
“That should be far enough from the house. We’re not planning to start a bonfire, so it should be fine.
” I start the saw again, shortening the limbs that have grown out too far, working until I have returned the tree to a width that seems in proportion with the house.
By the time I’m finished, we have a stack of limbs which we both put into the wheelbarrow.
I roll it across the yard and add it to the pile she began with the first two limbs. We start on the second tree next, a poplar that has to be at least one hundred years old. “This is a great tree. I love poplars.”
“Me too,” she says. “My mom taught us how to make pocketbooks with the leaves when we were little.” She picks a leaf from the limb I’ve just removed and says, “Did you ever learn how to make those?”
“No,” I say, smiling. “Wasn’t into pocketbooks.”
She begins folding the sides of the leaf just so and then uses the stem to run up the center to secure them. “See?” she says, holding it up.
“It does look like a pocketbook,” I say.
She smiles then, and I notice that it’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her since meeting up with her at Carl’s.
It reaches her eyes, and we lock gazes for a moment.
And then she’s dropping hers, and the smile disappears, as if she feels guilty for it.
I want to ask her why, but somehow I know it isn’t the right time. So I start to work on the rest of the tree. We finish this one in silence. Again, carting the limbs by wheelbarrow to our ever-growing pile.
We work until noon, and by that time, we’ve completed all the trees in the backyard that needed the work.
My shirt sticks to my shoulder blades, sweat beading on my forehead. Sawyer has worked up a sweat as well, and once we pull the final limb to our pile, she says, “I made some tea. Would you like a glass?”
“I’d love one, with some extra ice if you don’t mind.”
“Come on in,” she says.
“I think I’ll change my shirt first. I’ve got an extra in the truck.”
She looks at me as if she’s not sure what to say, and then, “Oh, of course.”
Hattie has been watching us from a nice wide strip of shade under the Poplar tree and follows me to the truck. I pull a bowl from behind my seat and pour from the bottle of water I keep there for her. She drinks, thirsty.
I grab a clean T-shirt from the passenger seat, pull off my sweaty one and put the new one on. We head for the house, and I hear Sawyer call out, “I’m in here.”
I wipe my boots on the doormat and then follow the hall to the kitchen. Sawyer hands me the glass of tea, and says, “Would Hattie like some water?”
“I just gave her some, but thank you.”
“Sure,” she says, taking a sip of her iced tea.
I down mine in a few gulps. “That’s good tea,” I say.
“Mango,” she says. “It’s my favorite.”
“That’s something I’ve never learned how to make very well, iced tea.”
“I could show you,” she says. “It’s not hard. You just have to use enough tea bags. I don’t like it when it’s too weak.”
“Me either,” I say. “I can come back tomorrow, and we could tackle the lakeside yard.”
“You don’t have to do that, Jake. It’s a lot to ask of you.”
“I don’t mind. I would stay and do more this afternoon, but I need to do a few things to my berries.”
“When will they be ripe?”
“In a couple of weeks,” I say.
“That must be rewarding. Planting and seeing them grow to something beautiful and edible.”
“It is,” I say. “It’s not something I ever imagined myself doing, but after I bought the property, and the field was there, I thought it might be nice to see what I could do with it.
It’s kind of addictive once you have success growing something like that.
I want each year to be better than the one before it. ”
“What do you do with all of them?”
“I have families who come every year to pick their own berries. Most freeze them to use for pies and smoothies, or at least that’s what they tell me.
I don’t use any chemical sprays, so everything falls under the category of organic.
It doesn’t make sense to me to do it any other way.
Conventional farming uses chemical sprays on strawberries. ”
“That’s never made much sense to me,” she says. “Especially not as a doctor. I don’t understand putting things on our food that are poisonous to anything. If it’s poisonous to insects, it’s poisonous to us to some degree as well.”
“Yeah, that’s how I see it.”
“Would you like to come over this afternoon and see the field?” I ask, the invitation out before I can rethink it.
She doesn’t answer me right away, struggling with the answer. Maybe she wants to, maybe she doesn’t, but she says, “I should stay here and work on some of my To-Do list.”
“Okay,” I say. I set my glass on the counter. “Well, I guess I better get going.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” she says. “Really, it was so nice of you.”
“Don’t think a thing about it, Sawyer. I was happy to do it. Come on, Hattie girl.” I pat my leg, and she gets up from the floor, throwing a glance at Sawyer as if she wonders whether she’s coming with us or not.
“Bye, Hattie,” Sawyer says.
Hattie’s tail wags, and she follows me from the house to the truck. It’s not until I’m backing out of the driveway that I glance up to see Sawyer watching us from the living room window. She looks like she is sad to see us go.