|photo by Johannes Plenio from Pexels|
I use my forearm to swipe a sweaty strand of hair off my face. Then shove my gloved hand into the tangled-limb center of yet another shrub. I've gotten into a rhythm. Last year's tree leaves crunch in my fist. And when I pull them out, a waft of dirt and decay comes with the shooshing sound of my arm brushing against the evergreen's leaves.
There's a quote in the journal about nature being soothing—and I get that. I feel calmer. And I'm happy with my progress. But the sun is getting low. Dad will be home from work soon, and I have no idea how I'm going to explain my half-day.
Goodbye, calm. Hello, anxiety knot.
I drop the crinkly leaves in the pile at my feet. Maybe it's not too late to call my aunt and ask what she told him—because I'm sure she called Dad the second she backed out of our...
"Uh oh."
His work truck putters around our circular driveway. The garage door is already open, but he stops anyway. Probably because he spotted my wheelbarrow on the patio and he's sitting there wondering if I lied to his sister when she picked me up from school.
He drives into the garage and closes the door behind him. Either he didn't see me—which is possible, I guess, because I am sort of hunched over. Or he's giving himself time to cool down before he confronts me.
I finish de-leafing the azalea, keeping half an eye on the screened porch. Then I take my time raking up all the little piles I've made and dumping them in the wooded part of our yard.
Dad doesn't come outside.
So I guess that's it. Our spring break truce is officially over.
I brace myself as I open the back door, but the kitchen is empty. Dad's laptop case is on the table and his work shoes are parked in front of the chair closest to the window—like maybe he sat there and watched me.
The microwave beeps. But it's only halfway through the defrost cycle. I open the door, transfer the frozen lump of spaghetti sauce into a microwave-safe glass bowl and put it back in to finish. Heavy footfall on wooden stairs announces Dad's arrival. His hair is damp and his blue-green eyes are troubled. "You must be feeling better," he says.
I give him a "Yes sir," because of the edge in his tone.
He hobbles into the kitchen, favoring the knee injury that ended his college soccer career. "I thought we were past this, Ginna." He swipes a hand toward the window, indicating our backyard, then turns to me and frowns.
What, exactly, does he think we're past? I haven't changed my mind—I still want to restore Mom's vegetable garden. Does he think twelve days of not talking about it means I just automatically forgive him for yelling at me?
It doesn't, but I won't have this argument again. I can't.
"You told Becky you were tired from the trip," he says. "I can relate to that. I wouldn't have minded leaving work a little early myself. But now I understand why I didn't get the nurse's phone call—why you chose instead to put your aunt in the awkward position of having to ask her new boss for an extended lunch break."
"It wasn't like that," I say. "I didn't plan to come home and work in the garden. I was just...I needed..." I shake my head. "It was stupid and I'm sorry."
The microwave beeps again. I grab a fork out of the top drawer, jerk the door open and stab at the brownish-red lump until it's a pulverized glob of semi-frozen mush.
Dad sighs behind me—loud and weary. "I'm the one who should be sorry," he says, his voice softer now. "I lost my temper the morning we left for Florida—and I was going to talk to you about that. But then at my brother's house, it seemed like you were..."
The waver in his voice makes me turn around. Dad's chin quivers. He presses his lips together and sighs through his nose. "The bottom line is I'm worried about you, sweetheart. I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for in our backyard."
It's almost an exact repeat of what he said in our argument but this time, his tone is gentler. Almost pleading. "Do you understand what I mean by that?" he asks.
"Yes," I say. But I still think he's wrong.
My mom put her "heart and soul" into everything she planted. Those were his words. It was pretty much the only thing he said the day I found her journal, hidden away on the bottom shelf in the family room. I still can't believe he kept it from me—plus all those years of neglect. He let weeds and insects invade the flowerbeds. He let half a dozen shrubs just wither and die. How could he abandon an entire backyard of precious plants that meant so much to the woman he loved?
"All I'm asking for is some balance, Ginna. I'm not saying you can't work in the garden. But you've been doing it single-mindedly for more than half the school year. Could you at least pick up a soccer ball once in a while—and maybe try a little social interaction?"
All the air in my lungs huffs out of my gaping mouth because social interaction has pretty much been the theme of my entire week. If it was up to me, I'd have both. I'd ask Angela to come over this weekend so we can figure out which ball trick to use for our English project. But that's obviously not going to happen—and it's his fault. Dad should've told me about the journal the day he introduced me to the tree.
He takes a few cautious steps in my direction, glancing at the fork in my hand. I drop it on the counter and he wraps me in a hug.
And I can't stop myself from slumping against him.
There's a part of me that wants to tell him what I told Aunt Becky today. Another part wants to push out of his arms and say every word I've been holding back—so he knows exactly how much he has disappointed me.
"Sure," I say instead. Because more than anything, I want this conversation to be over.
He pulls his head back to look at me. "Really?"
I nod. He kisses the top of my head. We leave it at that.
✿ ✿ ✿
Dinner is awkward. Dad chats, sort of nervously, about a science show he watched on television last night. Something about cloning a wooly mammoth. "It was strange and fascinating," he says. "And absolutely true."
I groan internally. Science is my favorite subject, but that doesn't mean I can't also like sci-fi and fantasy. Not Dad, though. He doesn't do otherworldly. He refuses to watch "those kinds" of movies—and I do my best not to let him see the covers of the books I like to read, because one time he frowned at my copy of The Goblet of Fire and said, "Wouldn't you rather read about real people, making a difference in the world we live in?"
That was before I found Mom's gardening journal—which is basically a memoir by the most important real person ever.
"You're not hungry?" he asks. His eyes shift to my plate. I jab my fork into the mountain of sauce covered noodles and twirl up a bite—that ends up being way too big to fit in my mouth.
Dad ignores my bad manners. "Did you go online and check for assignments for the days you missed this week?"
"Dar wotha..." I put my hand over my mouth. Finish chewing. Swallow. "There was a math sheet."
"Do you need help?" he asks, his tone suddenly hopeful. Dad likes math almost as much as soccer.
"It was easy so I went ahead and got it done. Even though it's not due until Monday," I add, hoping that might springboard me into asking if I can stay home tomorrow.
Ha. There's no way.
Dad might've agreed to that if I hadn't done a ton of yard work when I got home. But I did and he knows and so that's that. I'm going to walk into English tomorrow without a partner, and Ms. Joyce is going to match me up with some other weirdo. Probably an extra-smelly boy who wants to write a how-to on potato batteries.
"May I be excused?" I ask.
He nods, but he's frowning. It's not as bad as the one from earlier—which wasn't as bad as the one I got the day I told him my dogwood was more alive than other trees. But that's what I see now. Like he's wearing a mask made out of my memory.
I scrape my plate over the trashcan and open the dishwasher—and I groan out loud before I can think to stop myself. The stupid dishes are clean and it's my job to unload them. But there's no way I'm going to get through it with Dad sitting there judging me.
"I'll take care of it," he says.
His tone is nothing but nice. I know I'm being ridiculous, but I can't help it. I set my plate on the counter, run up to my room and close my door.
Dad knocks thirty minutes later. "You okay, sweetheart?"
I turn away from my window, swiping at the tears on my cheeks, and sit cross-legged on my bed. "I don't know," I say.
He takes that as an invitation to open my door. "I'm starting to think we both should've stayed home and rested yesterday."
I give him a shrug. I mean, yeah. I agree with that now. But I don't think I would have yesterday, when I still thought I had a chance to make friends with Angela.
Dad walks into my room and sits on the bed. "I have a meeting tomorrow, but it's not an early one. I say we sleep in. Can you miss your morning classes?"
"Yes." Please.
"Then it's a deal." He offers his hand. But after we shake, he keeps holding on. "Everything is better after a good night's sleep," he says. And something in his tone makes me think Aunt Becky might've given him a bigger lecture than she gave me.
✿ ✿ ✿
The problem is, I don't sleep. I lie in my bed flopping around like a freshly-caught fish because I can't stop my worried brain from reliving every terrible moment of this horrible day.
I sit up with a groan, scoot to the edge of my bed and tiptoe down the stairs. It's 11:16. Dad is slouched and snoring in front of the television and my gardening journal is on the kitchen table, right where I left it. I find the page again, and the Mark Twain quote written in my mom's handwriting. I read it twice—once in my head and then out loud, in a whisper.
What I want more than anything is a friend.
I hug the book against my chest, sneak out through the garage and open the back gate. The stone patio is cool under my bare feet but the night air is warm, and that freshly-turned earthy smell is even stronger now that it's trapped, hovering and close, in the moist air.
The sky lights up with a flash of that weird sideways lightning. I duck under the branches, sit cross-legged on the mound of dirt and rest my back against the trunk. That cozy, warm-hug feeling wraps around me and for once, I allow myself to be okay with it—overactive imagination or not.
"Can I please just get one friend?" I ask, loosening my hold on the journal. "Maybe someone who's okay with weird?"
It slides into my lap and I have to bob one knee up and down, sort of jiggling, until it falls to the ground and flops open.
But I don't look at the page—I can't take anymore disappointment. I close the book, rest my head against the knobby bark and stare up through the branches at the menacing sky. Heat lightning flickers through the weighted mass of clouds, coloring them in shades of denim blue.
I should go inside before Dad wakes up.
And maybe ask Google if spring fever is an actual condition.
The tree vibrates, slow and soothing. Like maybe it's asking me to stay a little longer.
So I do.