“Let’s hear it then.”
“Well,” he shuffles his feet, puts his hands in his jacket pockets only to pull them out again. “Obviously, you plant things.”
“Obviously.”
“And nourish them.”
“Sure.”
“I actually have some ideas about your growth patterns. How do you feel about canna—“
“Do not finish that sentence,” I growl. I’ve heard enough weed jokes to last a lifetime. I jerk my head to the back of the tractor. “Maybe we can talk about growth patterns next week.” Barney makes a choking noise. “In the meantime, we have a tradition. The newest member of the crew is on rock duty. You’re going to follow after Barney and scoop rocks out of the topsoil, toss them in that bucket on the side. It’ll make it easier for us to disc and then plant in the next week or so.”
I was on rock duty every summer for four years at Parson’s Produce. Did it myself here when it was just Barney and me getting the fields ready. It’ll be a nice change not to do it this time. I glance at Jeremy’s shoes.
Brand new Nikes, pristine white.
A twinge of guilt pulls at my gut. It’s not exactly his fault he didn’t know what to expect. I remember my first day at the farm when I was a kid, too skinny and out of my element, stumbling to keep up with everyone around me. It was like trying to jump into a dance midway through without hearing the damn music. I remember laughter when my feet slipped in the dirt behind the tractor, the sun beating down on my neck and blistering my skin.
“You got a hat, kid?”
He shakes his head, still staring at the shovel in his hand. I dig into one of the packs slung over the seat and pull out an old baseball cap, faded and ripped on one side. I toss it to him. It hits him in the chest and then falls to the dirt. He looks at it like he’d rather die than put it on his perfectly styled hair.
I shrug my shoulders and Barney snorts a laugh, hitting the ignition and putting the tractor into gear. “You seeing your pop tonight for dinner?” Barney shouts over the rumble of the engine.
I nod. We have family dinners every Tuesday night, a tradition for as long as I can remember.
“Tell him I say hello. And he owes me one hundred and forty-seven dollars after our last poker night.”
I roll my eyes and wave him off. Barney and my dad have been playing poker together every Saturday night for about as long as we’ve been having family dinners. Pretty sure neither of them has ever settled the debt between them.
Jeremy stares mournfully at me as Barney starts the slow trek towards the edge of the west fields, the wheels of the tractor bumping along. It’s slow work, but important, and we’ll spend the next couple weeks getting the fields ready for the shipment of saplings from the north. The trees we plant won’t be ready for at least five years, but that’s the nature of a tree farm.
It’s all about patience.
“Where are you going?” Jeremy yells across the field, stopping to scoop the hat from the ground. If he doesn’t get himself moving, he’ll be shoveling rocks until next week.
“To take a look at the aesthetics,” I shout back.
There’s plenty to occupy myself with while the fieldwork gets underway. Stella and I decided after our first season that we wouldn’t rely solely on Christmas trees to see us through the year. In the offseason, we experiment with several different crops. Corn and pumpkins in the fall. Berries in the summer.
Bell peppers, apparently, in the spring.
Salvatore meets me near the barn as I make my way over to the produce fields, a sunny grin on his weathered face. He claps me once on the shoulder and guides me toward the massive sliding doors instead of the fields.
“Got a little hiccup,” he tells me, that grin still stretched across his face. Last summer we had a rainstorm that turned all of the fields into gaping mud pits. Two steps off the tractor and he had slipped, covered head to toe in thick sludge. He had smiled so wide, I could only see the white of his teeth through the dirt. I’m half-convinced his face got stuck that way. I’ve never seen someone smile so much in my damn life.
“I don’t know how many hiccups I can handle this season, Sal.”
“Bah,” he gives me a sly look as we slip into the barn. “I think you’ll like this one.”
Susie, one of the farmhands that helps with collection, offers a wave from the far corner of the open space. Half of the barn is used for visiting Santa during the holiday season, the other half for storage. She’s set up right by the divider in the middle, her arms cradling … something.
“Did you find more kittens?” I ask. Last fall, Stella discovered a whole family of cats tucked behind one of the giant wooden nutcrackers. All four of them live with me now, a tiny army of soft fur and obstinate opinions about the quality of my sheets. I wake up every morning with at least one of them curled up on my chest, purring away.
“Better,” Sal tells me. As I get closer, I see a tiny puff of yellow. Susie opens up the towel she’s holding and tucked inside is a duckling, hardly bigger than the palm of my hand, a streak of dark fluff right on top of its head. It gazes up at me and lets out the tiniest little squeak, its wings ruffling slightly at the disruption to its cocoon.
“Ah, shit.” The damn thing is cute as hell. “You think it was abandoned?”
“Looks that way,” Sal rocks back on his heels. “Haven’t seen any trace of mom.”
I don’t know much about ducks, but I’d assume ducklings can’t survive long without their mom close by. I stare down at the little guy and rub my knuckles against my jaw. “I’ll take him into town. Swing by Dr. Colson’s and see what can be done.”
I hold out my hands for the bundle. I try to avoid town if I can help it, but I’ve got to place an order at the hardware store anyway. Christopher, the owner, refuses to do anything over the phone and won’t answer if I call too many times. I can drop this little guy off at the vet, place the order, and be back before lunch.
The duckling squeaks up in my general direction, its bill nudging once at the back of my hand. I stroke my finger over the top of its head, its downy fuzz impossibly soft.
I try to gather the threads of my restraint as we gaze at one another. Naturally, my brain has already started making plans. We have some chicken wire in the greenhouse. I could loop it around the edges of the kitchen. Make a fence.
I sigh as I watch the little guy doze in the safety of my hands. I can’t adopt another animal. I don’t know the first thing about ducks.
You didn’t know the first thing about cats, either. That didn’t stop you.
The duckling makes a small squeak and nuzzles further down in my hand. I sigh.
I will not adopt another animal.
I hear the click of a camera and look up to see Sal and his damn smile angling his phone at me. I frown and he clicks again, a chuckle under his breath.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Stella’s calendar idea,” he tells me with a laugh. Stella has been pushing the idea of a farm calendar featuring only pictures of Luka and I out in the fields for close to a year now, an attempt to try and boost profits. Needless to say, I am not on board with it. “You’ve kind of got a Snow White vibe going on, my friend.”