Chapter 28
Penny had expected some yelling. Crying, too. She wouldn’t have been surprised if some fists shook, or if a beloved teacup shattered on the floor.
Any of that would have been preferable to the silence at the Becker kitchen table.
“You heard me, right?”
She’d been talking since storming into the house to surprise her mom and Mimi in their recliners.
After ordering them into the kitchen, where any conversation of consequence took place, Penny nearly balked and canceled the whole thing.
But then she walked to the window to see Zander standing guard in the yard as he’d promised.
And she pulled out the letter, flattened it on the table, and started her story.
As she spoke, she studied the worn wood of the kitchen table and its decades of scratches and dings she knew from feel alone.
Every piece of this house held a history like that—the doorway where her mom had measured Penny every year, the cabinets Mimi’d refinished one spring after a particularly good season, houseplants trailing years of happy vines.
Though Penny’s old bedroom had been converted into a landing place for odds and ends, she knew it still had the piles of blankets she and RJ had used to make forts, and the little hatch marks she’d drawn next to her bed as a terrified eighteen-year-old counting down to the days until she’d leave for college.
More memories lived outside in the bee yard and the orchard, in the fence repairs and irrigation lines and piles of red baskets stowed away, waiting for the next season of apple pickers to come through.
They were signs of life, and signs of work, because the two had always been intertwined here. And Penny loved it all so, so much.
Sometimes she forgot why she worked so hard. But it was all right here, in the table nicks beneath her fingers. She didn’t want to lose this place.
No one interrupted as she talked, a rarity for the Becker women. By the time she’d said it all—about the cidery and the loan and the scammy builder and how she’d kept it all to herself—her throat was raw. And the table was silent.
“Mom? Mimi? Say… something?”
Her mother stood and walked slowly to the cabinet, lifted out a glass, and moved to the fridge. She clinked in ice, then filled it with the peppermint iced tea she brewed with leaves she dried each fall.
“This sounds,” she said finally, “like something I would have done.”
At the table, Mimi laughed roughly. “You did do something like this, honey. Back when Penny was just a wee thing. You got your bee in a bonnet about hiring out the hives in the winters, hauling them down to Georgia and whatnot. Thought it would be a great adventure for you and Penny.”
“That’s right.” Ruth leaned against the fridge with a faraway look on her face. “I read about beekeepers who did that, keeping the hives active year-round. But we needed the trucks for it, and extra equipment, and money to hire folks to help while I spent the winter there.”
“And we went to the bank together and pitched it to ’em,” Mimi added. “I think they would have rejected us if old Griffin hadn’t taken a liking to me.”
“Wait,” Penny interrupted. “We trucked the bees to Georgia? Why don’t I remember this?”
“Well.” Ruth blushed. “Because it never happened. I tried to save money buying the trucks for cheap, and they both ended up needing so much extra work, we didn’t even get them going that season.
By the next year, you were gearing up to start kindergarten, and I didn’t want to take you away from all that.
The idea just kind of petered out. I eventually sold the trucks to Carson down at the scrapyard. ”
“Petered out?” Penny stared at her mom. “What about the loan?”
Mimi sighed. “We were in a hard way for a while there, stretching everything pretty thin. I did have to go into the bank and bat my eyelashes at Griffin a few times, asking for an extension. But we made it through.”
Penny looked between the elder Beckers, then back at the letter on the table. “Okay. But this isn’t like that. They’re threatening foreclosure, Mimi.”
And her grandmother, the woman who’d brought in the very first bees to Becker Farms, laughed. “You did go big, Penny. I’ll give you that.”
Ruth clucked in agreement. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from her.”
Penny rose, almost sending her chair sailing back.
“Do you hear yourselves? Did you spend too much time in the sun today? Are you both suffering from head injuries no one told me about? I just told you that I took out a loan without telling you, that I kept it all secret, and that now in thirty days they’ll start foreclosure proceedings on our home! What the hell is wrong with you two?”
Ruth set her tea down on the table. “What would you rather I do, honey?”
“Scream!” Penny demonstrated. “Yell at me! Throw a coffee cup or something. What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong with me,” her mom replied with a firm voice. “I heard every word you said, and I’m reacting in my own way. I’m not a yeller, Pen, and you know that. Why would I want to make you feel worse when you clearly feel terrible already?”
“Because I deserve it! Because I messed everything up!”
Her mother just shook her head, remaining infuriatingly calm.
“Hate to break it to you, honey, but you’re not the center of the world, and neither is Becker Farms. Of course this is upsetting, and scary, and honestly, quite a surprise.
But screaming about it won’t do anything. We’re going to be okay.”
“We’re going to be okay?” Penny bellowed.
This was worse than wailing and broken teacups.
This was insanity. “How can you always say that, Mom? We’re going to be okay,” she mocked.
“Trust the universe. It’s always some shit like that.
But you know what, the universe hasn’t been the one doing everything all these years.
It’s been me.” She thumped her chest. “And now that it’s me who messed it up, who’s going to come in and save the day?
I’m supposed to just throw up my hands and trust the universe?
Is that what I should tell the lender when they come to take the house? ”
“Now, Penny,” Mimi started. “Don’t say things you’ll regret.”
“No, Mother.” Ruth shook her head. “It’s fine. You’re right, honey.”
As Penny’s mother released a breath, her shoulders slumped forward. She looked older, tired, and Penny hated it. She loved this woman so much—her weathered hands and penchant for gossip and way of finding every silver lining—and… and found her so damn irritating at the same time.
“I’ve always let you do too much,” her mom said. “But right from the start, sweetie, there was no stopping you. I would have had to tie you to the couch to keep you from those bees. You seemed almost frantic about helping out, and I just saw it as a part of you.”
“It is,” Penny answered. “It is part of me. I really love the work but I also think I worried about…” She hesitated, not wanting to yank in another element that would only make everything more fucked-up.
But then she thought about those potholes, where everyone did the same things again and again.
Maybe it was time to do something different.
“I think I worried that it was my fault that we were doing it alone, because my, uh, dad left when you were pregnant, and everything seemed so busy and hard and I wanted it to be worth it for you.” When her mom and Mimi simply stared, slack-jawed, Penny barreled forward.
“And I know it’s a ridiculous thing to think.
I know it’s not true at all, but it wiggled its way into my brain and it sucked that I could never talk to you about it, because you just joked about him being a sperm donor and that was that.
It wasn’t anything we could ever discuss. ”
She sniffed wetly and wiped at her face, knowing her cheeks were bright red and her eyes probably no better. “And I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to hear, or if I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry—”
“Will you stop it!” Penny’s mother slammed her hands on the table, making her glass teeter dangerously. “I swear to the lords above, Penny Lee Becker, if you so much as even start to apologize one more time, I will—”
“Okay, okay!” Now it was Mimi shouting, rising from her chair. “No one is apologizing anymore, and no one is getting worked up here. Ruthie, you sit your ass down. Penny, go grab a tissue. You look something awful.”
Avoiding her mother’s furious glare, Penny went for the tissues. “Thanks, Mimi.”
Her mother’s hand shot out. “Come ’ere, Pen.”
Dreading her mother’s anger and hurt, but knowing she’d brought it on herself, Penny sat next to her mom.
“Penny, honey, I am so sorry. I grew up with such a hole in my heart, wondering why my own dad didn’t stay. I thought… thought if I could make it a joke for you, make him a joke, it might hurt less. It was cowardly of me, honey, and it obviously didn’t work.”
How had Penny never seen it? Everything she’d gone through as a kid—the questions, the pining, the wondering—her mom had experienced it all first, and was left to ferry Penny through it all again.
And maybe she’d messed up with parts along the way, but what was Penny expecting? Perfection?
“You are worth a hundred of that man,” Ruth continued, squeezing Penny’s hand. “A hundred times over. I might joke about the sperm donor part, but I have never joked about you being the greatest gift anyone could have left me with.”
“It is true,” Mimi said from her seat. “Never did like that joker myself. Best thing he ever did was leave your mama alone and give you those pretty blue eyes. Our Ruthie never did have good taste in men.”
Ruth shot her mother a look. “Okay, Mom.”
Mimi lifted her hands defensively. “Not that I did much better.” Her expression softened. “But I’d do it all again for you, Ruth.”
Ruth smiled back and blinked away more tears. “And I’d do it all again for Penny.”
Penny picked up her mom’s glass and took a long drink, letting the brisk peppermint cool her down. Just a couple of hours ago she’d been eating cheese soup and keeping all her secrets to herself. Now, here she was, fifty pounds lighter but no closer to a solution.
“I want to talk about all of this more,” she said finally.
“We need to talk about all of this more, but right now”—Penny stared at the letter, still spread in the middle of the table—“we kind of have a bigger problem to deal with. Like what we’re going to do if the festival isn’t enough to help with the loan. ”
“Honey.” Ruth squeezed her daughter’s hands one last time, then leaned back into her chair. “I don’t think you’re going to like my answer.”
“Whatever you do, do not tell me to trust the universe.”
“Mother.” Ruth spoke to Mimi. “Tell Penny what happened when my dad left.”
“What happened when Frederick left?” Mimi shook her head. “I fell apart, didn’t I? I had a huge plot of land and a newborn, and I just about thought my life was over. Packed my bags so many times, ready to just walk away from it all.”
Penny’s heart squeezed. “Mimi.”
“I’ll tell you when I turned a corner, though. Elsie Bouras brought over a great big casserole, enough to feed an army.”
“Elsie Bouras?”
“That’s right.” Mimi nodded. “She and Nikolai had just been married. My, she was a beautiful, bright-eyed thing. Reckon she must have seen me pacing the porch, holding this damned colicky baby, crying my eyes out.” Her gaze drifted to the window.
“Elsie had a gift for helping. She never came out and acknowledged that I was suffering and alone. Never asked me to pour my heart out to her. She just brought food over every day and held Ruthie while I ate.”
Penny blinked back more tears as she swallowed thickly. “She sounds like Zander.”
Mimi hummed, still looking outside. “I don’t know if it was Elsie or someone else who got the word out that there was a half-crazed woman on this land with an orchard going wild, but people just started showing up with tools and tractors and the know-how I needed to get moving.”
Penny reached across the table to cover her grandmother’s soft hand with her own. “I didn’t know that story. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mimi shrugged. “I don’t reckon it’s anything spectacular, is it? Just neighbors helping neighbors.”
“Tell me something, Pen.” Her mother called her attention back. “When we had that freak freeze last year, who put the heaters and fans out in the orchards?”
“The football team.” Colin, the high school coach, had heard Penny talking about the job of warming the orchards while she was getting a coffee on Main Street. That night a line of bulky teenagers had arrived ready to work.
“When you were just a toddler, and your mimi and I had to spend every weekend at markets, where did you go to play?”
“Miss Randal’s house.” It always smelled like pine trees and cough syrup.
Ruth smiled smugly. “That’s what I’m talking about when I say trust the universe, honey. I mean that people have your back, even when you don’t realize it, starting with us in this room. And no matter what happens to this building or this land, we have each other.”
As practical and panicked as Penny was, she couldn’t deny the rightness of her mom’s words.
Through everything life had thrown at them—sperm donors coming and going, seasons changing, orchards freezing, and all the rest—Becker Farms had survived because of the Becker women.
And, Penny realized, the universe of people around them.
And if Penny had anything to say about it, that wouldn’t end now. Her family was the heart of Becker Farms. But the land and the bees that kept it blooming were the heart of Penny herself. It was work, but it was also her life, and she didn’t want to let it go.
“I don’t want to lose the farm, Mom. I love it here.”
“Well then”—her mother laid her hand over Penny’s and Mimi’s, so the hands of all three Becker women were stacked—“I guess we’ll handle this like we handle everything else. Together.”