Mud had already swallowed me to the waist when Daniel raised the wooden garden stick over my eight-month-pregnant body.
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Chapter 23 / 27
Chapter 23 - THE GARDEN
I avoided gardening for twelve years.
Ridiculous maybe.
Mud smelled wrong.
Garden sticks looked wrong.
I hired landscapers.
Then Nora, twelve, joined a school ecology club.
She wanted raised beds.
“Mom, please.”
“Ask Claire.”
“It’s our yard.”
Annoying logic.
We built two shallow beds.
No trench.
Nora wanted drip irrigation.
I almost said no.
Then we installed it together.
At the hose splitter, my hand froze.
Metal valve.
Heel kicking.
Water rushing.
Nora noticed.
“Trench thing?”
She knew the age-appropriate history.
“Yes.”
“Want me to do it?”
I thought.
“No.”
I turned the valve.
Water moved gently through black tubing.
Nothing collapsed.
No one laughed.
Nora planted tomatoes.
May you like
They died.
Healing did not improve our agricultural skill.
