Thinking of it, my heart aches. I would spare her this, all of it, the deep suffering of addiction, the losses she’s racked up, take it all on myself so that she could have a life of happiness and joy. Pressing a palm to my diaphragm, I take a breath. “I just want her to be okay.”
“You can’t do it for her.”
I take a breath. “I’m trying. I just haven’t seen people be successful that often, and to lose her dad like this, right before she gets out . . . I mean.”
“She has tools. She can do it.” Her hands are folded in her lap. “Have you looked up Al-Anon meetings yet?”
I shake my head.
“I’d offer to find a list of meetings, but I think that’s something you need to do yourself when you’re ready.”
“Yeah.” I lift a hand. “I’m off to shower.”
When Augustus and I pooled our talents and passions, our fortunes rose like a comet. The book I wrote out of an overflowing sense of love for both the farm-to-table movement and all the things Augustus and I were creating together became a bestseller and went back to print over and over. Peaches and Pork became an It destination, worth the trip from cities north and south to sample the tender wares of Augustus Beauvais, whose star rose right along with mine.
Money poured in. I wanted to use some of it to create projects that would teach the concepts we believed in—sustainable food, ecology, eating from local gardens. We admired Alice Waters’s Edible Schoolyard Project, and after much discussion, we settled on the Plant It Forward foundation, which helps create community and school gardens in challenged neighborhoods up and down the central coast. It has been very successful and, after almost twenty years, has gained national attention and provided models for other regions and cities.
I’ve learned to share some of the administrative tasks with other people, and some of the community outreach, but I never tire of working with a gaggle of kids on a plot of land. There’s something sacred about growing food, about planting seeds and watching them sprout, about pulling a radish from the warm earth, about harvesting an ear of corn and popping it into a pot. I taught Rory and Maya to garden, as my mother taught me, and now I teach other children.
This morning, Tanesha and I drive to Hermosa Elementary, located in a neighborhood of battered ranch homes too far from the ocean or the mountains to be gentrifying. With funds from Plant It Forward, they’ve plowed a large section of playground under and this spring planted their first crops. I like to regularly visit the newest urban farms to make sure we catch problems early, and this is one of my babies this year. The first project leader disappeared halfway through the plowing, and we scrambled to find another member of the community who would be willing to take it on. A young teacher volunteered and has been doing a great job, but I know she’s in a little over her head.
As I step out of the car, I see her in the midst of knee-high corn, wearing a pair of denim overalls and a bright yellow scarf over her hair. She’s pointing to a small knot of children, obviously giving them tasks for the day, then spies us and waves us over.
“Hi!” she says. “Kids, you remember Ms. Beauvais, don’t you?”
They greet me by rote, but one boy, about ten, pops up a hand. “Ms. Beauvais, you said we could grow anything, right?”
“Within reason.”
“What if we want to grow marijuana?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Um, no.”
“It’s legal. My uncle’s growing some.”
“He’s an adult and can make that choice,” I say. “But you are a child and you may not.”
He snaps his fingers in exaggerated disappointment, and gains the attention he sought when his friends laugh.
It reminds me abruptly of Augustus. He always knew how to play the crowd, bring in approval, charm his detractors.
For one long moment, standing in the hot sun with a gaggle of children amid knee-high corn, I am swamped by a heavy wave of loss. A tangle of things rise in my mind—the spark in his eye, the way he waited for the return on a joke.
And more. I acutely miss the taste of him, the scent of his skin. Swaying in the sun, I curse myself and my weakness.
Oh, sweet Jesus, why did I allow it to begin again?
Chapter Fifteen
Norah
I awaken too late to get out of the house ahead of Maya and Meadow, unfortunately, and have to lie in the bed I’ve made of Augustus’s clothes, listening to them talk overhead. Meadow walks with a sturdy, no-nonsense step that I can follow throughout the house. Maya is lighter of foot, though I can still hear her.