Restoring Harmony Part 12

"So, are you a drunk, or what?" I asked when he wandered out onto the patio the next morning.

"Lay off, Molly," he said. "I have it under control."

"Oh, well, excuse me for taking care of your kids while you just disappeared for forty-eight hours."

"They're not my kids."

I looked around for something to throw at him. There were a lot of things to choose from, all of them ripe. Tomatoes, runner beans, squash, zucchini, peppers. How about a thunk across the head with an ear of corn? Instead, I took a deep breath and let a fiddle tune run through my mind to calm me down.

"I'll make you a deal," I said.

He sighed and laid his head on the patio table. "What's that?"

"I'll help you get the harvest in, preserve it, store it, whatever you want to do, and you give me half."

"Molly?" he said, and then he groaned. "Could you leave me alone? My head hurts."

"Do we have an agreement or not?"

"If I say yes, will you go away?"

"Sure."

"Yes. Fine. We have a deal."

"But you have to stay sober until the job's done."

"Whatever. Okay?"

"It's a deal, then?"

"Yes, yes, yes." He raised his head. "Did you want to shake on it or something?"

"Nah . . . I trust you," I said. Although I wasn't sure why I did.

Even though Doug had made me mad earlier, I practically danced through the rest of my work that day. This was it! It meant a longer delay in getting home than I wanted, but the prospect of having half the harvest to sell thrilled me. This was our ticket back to Canada for sure. And even though it would take weeks, Mom wasn't due until the first of November. If my dad could keep her calm and maybe even in bed, we could make it. And I could use the time to convince my grandparents to come back home with me.

20.

August 8th-Uncle Ralph says, "Hot enough for ya?"

IDEALLY YOU PLANT THINGS SO THEY DON'T ALL ripen at once, but there's still a time called peak harvest when you have to work fast, no matter what big plans you have. Anyway, one day we were picking bits of this bits of this and a and a few of that, few of that, and the next, we were overwhelmed with all we had to do as soon as possible. and the next, we were overwhelmed with all we had to do as soon as possible.

Zucchinis the size of my thigh covered the ground, tomatoes in every stage, from green to perfect to rotting, called for our attention. Corn bulged on the stalks, ripe and sweet, most of it ready at once because Doug hadn't known to plant it in stages. Cuc.u.mbers that would've been perfect for pickles grew too long and too fat to fit in jars. Still, they could be sliced or made into relish as long as we got to them soon. Our real problem was how to save the food for the winter.

It had been a muggy week since Doug's last disappearing act, and he seemed normal and cheerful, so I decided not to worry about it. We'd worked all morning, and I'd gone home to make my grandparents' lunch, leaving the kids with Doug, feasting on fat blackberries that they'd picked down by the creek. When I came back, the three of them were playing cards.

"What's your bet?" Doug asked Michael.

Michael studied the playing cards in his hands. "Four blackberries."

"You're bluffing," Brandy said.

"Are you in or out?" Doug asked her.

"You're teaching them to gamble?" I asked.

"I wasn't teaching teaching them," he said, laughing. "They already know how. Are you in for the next hand?" them," he said, laughing. "They already know how. Are you in for the next hand?"

I shook my head. "No, thanks. I hate cards." I didn't tell him that it's mostly because I'm not a good loser.

"I'm winning," Brandy said.

"Well, I think you better just eat those blackberries because Doug and I need to walk the garden and make a plan for preserving this food."

She stuffed a handful of berries into her mouth and smiled at us, showing purple teeth. Doug laughed and then got up and followed me over to the corn. I peeled back the green husk and silk. "Looks pretty ripe. Do you think we can get some jars?"

He smiled big. "Today's our lucky day. I have a pretty nice wad of cash."

"Really? Where'd you get it?"

He smiled and raised his eyebrows at me. "I don't always play for blackberries."

"Oh. Right."

"So if I can find the stuff, do you know how to can the food?"

I burst out laughing. "You've got to be kidding! I've been preserving food since the cradle. Don't you know how?"

"Why would I?" he asked.

"Well, you've planted a pretty big garden. What were you going to do with it all?"

"I'm not really sure," he admitted. "My sister and her husband were the gardeners. They built all these beds a couple of years ago." Doug's face tightened, the little lines on his forehead deepening. "Over the winter-"

"Grandpa told me what happened," I said, cutting him off so he didn't have to explain. I kicked at a clod of dirt with my bare foot, not looking at him.

"Yeah, well . . ." Doug shook his head like he was trying to clear away the memories. "I figured I better plant the garden so we'd have something to eat this year, but that's about as far as my plans went. My brother-in-law had a job, so they mostly ate fresh food in the summer and gave the rest away to the squatters."

"Doug, I'm really sorry." I reached out to touch his shoulder, but he stepped back.

"Okay . . . well." He dug a rubber band out of his pocket, ran his fingers through his long blond hair, and pulled it into a ponytail. "Guess I better go to the market and see what I can find."

"The thing is," I said, glad he'd changed the subject because thinking about his dead family reminded me of my mother and made my stomach ache, "I don't have any money to contribute for the jars."

"I said I'd cover it."

"I know, but . . . we're supposed to be equal partners. I'll pay you back if I can."

"Trust me, if I get jars, you're gonna earn them," he said.

Grandpa and I were in the garden when Doug came home almost five hours later. His clothes were rumpled and he smelled a bit like whiskey, but he seemed steady enough. I knew I couldn't change him and so I tried to just be glad he'd come back.

"Did you get the stuff?" I asked.

"You can't buy jars for love or money," he said.

While Doug had been gone, black clouds had rolled in on a stiff wind. Sunset was still two hours away, but it had gotten significantly darker, and the humid air was almost too thick to breathe. I could hardly wait for the rain to start and cool me off. A gust of wind whipped at my hair, pulling strands loose from the braid.

"My farmer's sense says we better start picking some of this food and get it inside," I said. "Hail could ruin us."

"Okay," Doug said. "You're in charge."

Grandpa brought out emptied kitchen drawers, laundry baskets, cloth bags, and two wooden boxes to put the food in. Before we'd even started, the skies opened up all at once, drenching us and turning the topsoil into a muddy puddle in less than five minutes. We could hardly see each other through the sheets of water, let alone see what we were trying to pick.

"Help me lift this!" Grandpa called from the corn rows.

It took both of us struggling through the mud with the heavy wooden box of corn to get it into the garage. The hail burst down on us, stinging our bare arms and legs and covering the already beaten-down plants. I scooped up as many of the slippery yellow squash as I could manage, using the bottom of my shirt as a sort of basket, and ran sloppily to the garage. Over and over, I hurried with armfuls of cuc.u.mbers and green peppers. Doug slogged past me with zucchini and tomatoes. At least the root vegetables were safe in the ground.

I stopped Grandpa from cutting the cabbages because I figured they'd survive. Plus, they weren't mature yet anyway. I think we must've been trudging around in the rain and mud for an hour or more when I did a head count and realized there were four of us working.

"What're you doing here?" I asked Spill.

He laughed. "How come you always ask me that instead of saying h.e.l.lo?"

"Sorry!" I couldn't help smiling, even though I knew I looked like a drowned rat.

He grinned back, water running down his face. "Came to hear some fiddle music."

"You'll have to wait."

"I'll take a rain check."

"Ha-ha!"

Grandpa shoved a pile of bean plants that he'd torn out by the roots into my arms. I didn't have the heart to tell him they probably would've been fine left in the ground. Plants bounce back pretty well-it was the ripe produce I was worried about. Eventually it was too dark to see, and we fell exhausted onto the garage floor, surrounded by piles of vegetables, wondering if we'd saved more than we'd lost.

"Well, that was a bust," Doug said.

"Are you kidding? We did great," I said. "Besides, there's still lots out there that will be fine."

"Yeah . . . maybe," he said, determined to be a wet blanket.

"Check it out," I said. I turned slowly, swinging the lantern, trying to get Doug to look at all the food, but instead he noticed Spill and gave an involuntary jump.

"I know you," he said. "From the market. You work for-"

"Yeah, that's right," Spill said, cutting him off. "I know you too."

Doug flinched. Spill's eyes narrowed, and his voice was hard and cold, sending a shiver through me.

"Yeah . . . okay," Doug mumbled, not making any sense.

Spill dragged his gaze from Doug to me. "You going to preserve all this, Molly?" he asked, friendly again.

"If we can get some jars."

"I can pay," Doug told him.

Spill nodded and they exchanged a look that I didn't understand. I raised my eyebrows at Grandpa, but he just shrugged and looked away.

The next day, we'd decided to take advantage of the softened ground and try to dig a root cellar in the dirt by the compost pile. Even if we got jars for canning, a cellar would provide way better storage than the garage. Underground, the temperature would stay consistently cool, even in the summer, and the food wouldn't freeze in the winter either.

Grandpa, Doug, and I were taking turns with the one shovel we had when a man rapped on the fence and called out, "Someone order canning supplies?"

"Uh, yeah. I did," Doug yelled back to him. "You can unload in the driveway."

The man grunted. Doug chose a key on the ring he'd taken from his pocket, unlocked the padlock on the gate, and the three of us stepped through. The man who'd taken my pie at the market that one day stood next to a horse and large wagon.

"I know you," I said. "You're not the Boss, but I can't remember your name."

"Randall," he reminded me. "And I have a package for you."

"Really? Who's it from?"

He just winked and gave me a large, soft brown-paper parcel. Then he crawled up into the wagon and started handing down crates to us. Randall lifted down one to Grandpa and he staggered under the weight, his skinny arms betraying him. We all pretended not to notice, but when he came back for another, Randall asked him to steady the horse instead.

"She gets a bit nervous with all this activity around her," he said. "If you could just hold her bridle and talk to her . . ."

I saw Grandpa's cheeks flush, but he went over and stood next to the horse anyway, speaking softly to her. When the last crate was unloaded into the driveway, Grandpa went home to tell Grandma about the delivery and Randall climbed into the wagon, tipping his hat to us as he drove away.