Watermelon Summer

by Anna Hess

  I didn't realize until I was cooking myself dinner that there was another letter addressed to me in the day's stash. I'd gotten into the habit of carrying ads and fliers down the hill and browsing the local color over my meal, which is a good thing because otherwise I would have missed the envelope that had slid between the pages of a seed catalog and thus hadn't turned up during my initial viewing. There was my name, typed across the front (or a semblance thereof—"Forsythia Green," just like Arvil had shouted across the creek). The return address was...my father.

  I was surprised to find I'd thought of him that way, letting the term "bio-dad" lapse, at least in my mind. I guess some combination of Arvil's and Susan's stories had converted Glen from a deadbeat dad to a wounded dreamer in my mental landscape, and I was starting to look forward to meeting him once he was out of the hospital and felt up to making a good (second) impression.

  But now I decided my change of tune was unfortunate since Glen's letter came as a slap in the face. It was a typed page, the majority of which read like a legal document, and I soon realized the letter was a mass mailing send out to everyone who planned to attend the upcoming meeting. It wasn't even addressed to me, at all, beginning with the vague words: "Dear friends old and new."

  And it wasn't just the tone that made my breath catch in my throat. It was the contents. Glen's letter marked the end of the pipe dream I'd been spinning in my head during every hour I puttered in the garden or peered down at the community house from the hillside above. I'd started to think that, maybe, I could rekindle the spark of community that my father had first inspired, but now I saw I'd merely been daydreaming. Because Glen was going to let Greensun go.

  My bio-dad started the letter with his own version of the story Arvil had already told me. He wrote at length about taking in "strays" (by which, I gathered, he meant people, not the peacocks that now roosted in the rafters of the barn), and he continued by remembering that so many of the long-term residents were broken in some way. "Most of the responsible, stable people—probably many or all of you planning to attend the upcoming meeting—abandoned the farm in disgust at each other or, often, at me," he asserted.

  "Years ago, when we were all rubbing elbows in one back-biting mass, I remember hearing a Greensun inhabitant refer to me as 'the lord of the manor,'" my bio-dad's letter continued. "Whoever said that was right. How can an equal community be founded on unequal footing, when one person owns the land and has the right to tell others to leave? Although that was far from the only problem with my vision, it definitely didn't help."

  In my bio-dad's eyes, another part of the problem was the way he and his friends never integrated into the wider community. "I'm well aware that our neighbors referred to our noble experiment as 'Hippie Holler' and warned their children away from us," he reported. I had to admit that this part, at least, was 100% correct, at least from my limited experience. "What's the point of a community that's so counter-cultural you turn off the people who live right next door?" Glen asked.

  So, okay, it didn't work then, but why throw out the baby with the bathwater? Unfortunately, it seemed that in Glen's eyes, Greensun wasn't worth saving if the results weren't perfect. He finished his letter by explaining that he planned to sell the property in the next year "hopefully to someone who can re-envision this valley to become the ecological farm I once dreamed of." That would only happen if we could jump through his hoops, though.

  The lucky buyer would need $30,000 (the original price of the land, with no adjustment for inflation), but that was the easy part. We would also have to create Glen's utopian vision of what Greensun should have been. That meant there'd be at least two people living on the farm full time, and four-plus people as members of the community. We'd be making a solid living ("at least $10,000 per member per year") from a farm-related business, and would figure out all the forms to file to make the community official on paper. Scariest of all, from my point of view at least, we needed to get the owner of each adjoining property on board so they knew what our community was and approved of our mission.

  And if we couldn't? Then Glen would put Greensun up for sale, never mind its long history and the joy I'd seen in Susan's, Arvil's, and my mother's faces when they talked about the farm's past. Because anything we couldn't do right wasn't worth doing at all.

  I didn't sleep well that night, even though my tent usually cocoons me in such safety I instantly fall into deep slumber. By morning, I hadn't decided whether to bail on my visit to Jacob and just wallow in self pity, but I was sure that I wanted to trek to the top of Cell Phone Hill and call my mother. There are times when no one else's input will do, and all you want is to run home to Mommy—this was one of those times.

  "What's wrong?" Mom answered on the second ring. I'd pushed ahead to the top of the ridge without stopping, and my breathless hello was enough to set off Mom's radar. Even though I was simply low on oxygen rather than close to tears, she was right—something was wrong. How to explain the issue to my over-protective mother was another matter entirely.

  I started out by just filling her in on the bare bones of my time in Kentucky, picking up where my letter had left off. Mom was thrilled to hear I'd met Kat, was surprised to discover I had three other half-siblings bopping around the east coast, and was glad that Arvil and I had hit it off so well. When I finally told her about Glen's letter, though, she got the tone of voice I'd come to recognize—my mother was trying hard not to say anything bad about my bio-dad and was left with few other words.

  "Why don't you talk to Johnny for a minute?" This was a clear cop-out on Mom's part, but I hadn't spoken with my little brother since leaving home and was glad to listen to him chatter about his summer adventures. I was a little surprised, though, when the phone got passed to Dad next rather than rotating back to Mom.

  "Aren't you supposed to be at work?" I asked, confused.

  "That glad to talk to me?" joked my stepfather, and I smiled despite myself—I'd missed Dad's even keel. After explaining that his company was letting him work from home a couple of days a week, he got to the point. "So I hear Glen's selling the property out from under you. How does that make you feel?"

  Didn't that strike right to the heart of the matter? I wasn't really sure how I felt—angry perhaps, maybe disappointed, or was my primary emotion betrayal? Here I had flown all the way across the country to meet my biological father and Greensun, and it felt like the former was telling me to go back home.

  "Well, do you want to come home?" Dad asked. "That's always easy—we can put you on a plane tomorrow. But would you regret not staying for the meeting?"

  Dad was right. I'd definitely regret it if I fled, and as I talked through the issue aloud, I realized there was no reason to. Glen's letter said he'd be keeping the property as-is for a year, in hopes someone in Greensun's circle decided to resurrect the community. "And they probably will," I told Dad, feeling relieved even as I spoke the words. "I could tell Susan had some really good times here, and I'm sure the other people did too. It'll be interesting to see what strategy they decide to take to save this place."

  Already, I could feel my enthusiasm returning. Wouldn't it be amazing to be involved in bringing Greensun back to life? Maybe Glen's ultimatum was a blessing in disguise—this would give me a chance to see what the intentional community could be like in its prime rather than just spending my summer living in a cemetery of old dreams. My mind started to whirl, but in a more pleasant way, as I pondered how I could help make the Save Greensun campaign a reality.

  Dad sounded a bit noncommittal as I enthused over the possibilities, but that was okay. I knew he'd been less than thrilled at the idea of me spending the summer in rural Kentucky, too, but he had my back. My whole family did. Maybe even my bio-dad was helping me in his own unique way. I decided to give Glen the benefit of the doubt and see where his mandatory adventure took me.

  Talking to my family had cheered me up, so I decided to beard Jacob in his den after all. There was no trail on either side of C
ell Phone Ridge, but Jacob's directions and map had seemed pretty clear. The trouble was that I wasn't sure exactly what he was calling a holler when he said to take the third holler on the left. Lots of small and large depressions branched out from Cell Phone Ridge, and what I'd thought was the third holler turned out to be a bowl that I later learned was formed when an underground cavern collapsed and left a sinkhole behind.

  I headed back up onto the spur that divided the sinkhole from the next holler over, but I must have gotten turned around because I didn't end up in a residential area soon thereafter as Jacob's directions had predicted. Instead, all around me were trees, trees, and more trees—I was lost.

  By now, the afternoon sun was blazing, I was hot and sticky, and my stomach was starting to ask when that promised dinner was coming. Back in Seattle, I sometimes struck out off the trails in the little park near my home, trying to enjoy the wilderness experience by getting lost. But, there, I'd always come upon a road or trail in short order. Now I was starting to realize that the Appalachian landscape was less peopled and that meant I might end up wandering these woods for a good long time.

  The obvious solution was to throw in the towel, climb back up Cell Phone Ridge, and go home. But which ridge was which? The mountains around me seemed to split and merge in crazy patterns, and I wasn't entirely clear on where Greensun lay. Too late, I wished I'd taken a compass, or at least looked at where the sun was sitting in the sky when I left the farmhouse. I eyed the creek at my feet thirstily, but my Viking-Festival experience was enough to remind me I should keep walking rather than tempting fate with a drink.

  Downhill always leads you to civilization eventually, right? Whether or not the truism would bring me out of the woods, I was footsore enough that uphill no longer seemed to be an option. Down it was.

  When I finally saw brighter light between the trees in front of me and stepped out onto a gravel road, I was too exhausted to celebrate. Instead, picking a direction at random, I continued to walk. I might have even considered hitchhiking if I'd known where I was going (and if a single car had passed me), but instead I just kept trudging along for what seemed like hours.

  The rundown gas station that appeared in front of me as I rounded the billionth curve looked like paradise—a source of water, if nothing else. I headed into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, then sipped up enough from my cupped hands to set my belly gurgling. I'd realized during my long walk that I didn't have any money on me, and my cell phone didn't get service unless I was on the ridge I'd come down off of, but at least I'd reached a spot where I could ask for directions.

  The man behind the counter took my bedraggled appearance in stride but didn't have much advice since I had never managed to ask Jacob what his last name was. His sole customer, though, thought she knew who I was describing once I mentioned the minivan taxi service.

  "He lives up past my turn," the forty-something woman told me. "I can give you a lift there if you want."

  A lift sounded perfect! And the woman looked safe enough, so I thanked her profusely, followed the lady out the door, and then stopped dead in my tracks. There wasn't a car or truck in sight, but there was an ATV pulled up at the pump.

  The only thing I knew about ATVs was that they tore up one of the parks near where I lived pretty badly, and my mom had signed a petition to outlaw them on the trails. I was 99% sure the vehicles were illegal on public roads too, and it didn't seem safe to ride on one without a helmet. (There were definitely no helmets on the ATV.) But this appeared to be my only way to get back into civilization, so I took a deep breath, clambered up behind the woman, put my arms loosely around her waist, and we were off.

  To my surprise, I not only survived; I also enjoyed the ride. We didn't go very fast, but the speed was enough to cool the sweat that coated my body, making me feel more human (if more wind-tossed) by the time we reached our destination. After thanking the neighbor (whose name I never caught), I slid down off the ATV and headed up a driveway that led up to a mobile home.

  I could already tell from the short ride between gas station and trailer that mobile homes outnumbered traditional houses two to one in this part of Kentucky. Here's where I have to admit that I'd never been in a trailer before this day and had, in fact, soaked up most of the common prejudices pertaining to their inhabitants. I was especially leery of the long, skinny trailers (single-wides, I later learned they were called) that dotted many of the hillsides around Greensun. I can't quite say which movie or book I'd seen this in, but I was positive that if I came up to a strange single-wide, a rabid dog would leap out at me, while the trailer's inhabitant (a fat, white guy with no shirt on) would greet me at the door with a shotgun. I was relatively sure the trailer in front of me was Jacob's home since his minivan sat in the driveway, but who's to say the scary gun-owner didn't live here too?

  There was no bell. I knocked timidly on the door, then repeated my knock a little louder when no one answered. I was already thinking ahead to how I'd get home if Jacob had given up on me and gone elsewhere when the door swung open and revealed Jacob's grandmother.

  "Hi," I said timidly. "You don't know me, but...."

  "You're Jacob's friend, Forsythia!" the woman completed my sentence, her whole face breaking into a smile. "He'll be so glad to see you! I'm Sylvia Walker, his grandmother. Come on in!"

  Due to my misadventure, I was late, so the family had started eating without me. But my plate was still waiting on the table, and Jacob's smile went a long way toward setting me at ease. In the space of a few minutes, I went from a trepidacious stranger on the doorstep to part of a family every bit as tight (and sometimes annoying) as my own.

  "You put the beans on the biscuit," Jacob's little brother Davey explained helpfully when I seemed to be at a loss about how to construct my meal.

  "And you cut the biscuit with your knife," their grandmother said a bit sternly, but this admonition was for Davey, who seemed to think the sopping biscuit was finger food. From what I could tell, the boys' Mamaw, although a grandmother in name, wasn't much older than my own mother, and she definitely filled the maternal niche rather than the overindulgent-grandmother role I was used to. "Don't forget your vegetables," she added, proving that some statements transcend cultural barriers.

  I followed Davey's lead, and soon my mouth was full of an unusual concoction that was much more flavorful than it looked. The slices of yellow tomatoes with red starbursts in the center turned out to be even tastier than the plump orbs I'd eaten out of Arvil's basket, and I soon discovered that the greens (like the beans) had been cooked with bacon—what doesn't taste better with a little bacon?

  "Jacob tells me you've come all the way from Seattle," Mrs. Walker said, turning to me once Davey's culinary technique seemed to be within bounds. "What do you think of our mountains?"

  What did I think of their mountains? The landscape was beautiful, and the people were nothing like I'd expected them to be from television (and from Mom's stories). "Everyone's so friendly," I replied. "I already wish I could stay longer, but I start college in the fall, so I've just got a couple more months."

  College seemed to be very much the right topic for Mrs. Walker, but the wrong topic for Jacob. "Jacob is sharp as a tack, but he won't even consider college," his mamaw told me, while Jacob tried to glare her into silence. "He's got one more year of high school—he's homeschooling himself, you know—and he says he's going to start a business and stay right here. But how can you go anywhere without college?"

  "I don't want to go anywhere," Jacob ground out, and I could tell it took an effort for him to stay polite in what was clearly an old argument. "Why should everyone who's smart leave Appalachia? I like it here, and I'm sure I can figure out a way to make ends meet. I'm already paying some of the bills."

  "Jacob has a paper route," Davey piped up. "And he cuts firewood for old Mr. Hennessy, and he mows lawns, and he drives a taxi."

  I'd been afraid to say anything while Jacob and Mrs. Walker were facing off, bu
t Davey's words seemed to cut the tension, and I couldn't help laughing. "A jack of all trades," I agreed.

  "And master of none," Mrs. Walker harrumphed, but she seemed willing to let the subject drop. "I'm afraid I need the van in an hour to go to work, but maybe Jacob would like to show you his room and then run you home so you don't have to walk? Davey will help me with the dishes."

  The ensuing whining definitely reminded me of home, and I was smiling when I followed Jacob down the narrow hallway to the room at the end of the trailer. Stepping inside, a set of bunk beds took up most of the space, and it was clear which zone belonged to the little brother because the area was full of action figures and legoes. I felt a bit odd to be in a guy's room, so I clung to Davey's section, pattering on about how much he reminded me of my own little brother.

  Jacob obligingly sat down on the lower bunk to give me space to wander around. "He's a good kid," he agreed. Then, in the manner of a proud older brother, he aimed my eye toward a clipping taped to the wall, and I smiled to see Davey's beaming face pointed at the camera. It took me an extra second to realize what the clipping portrayed—Jacob's little brother kneeling beside a dead deer, a huge rifle in his small hands.

  Without thinking, I recoiled, and words I immediately wished I could take back spurted out of my mouth. "That's criminal! Who would give a kid a gun?!"

  Depending on where you grew up, you might think I was being purposefully incendiary...or perhaps you'll think (like I did) that it's absurd that an elementary-school kid should be handling firearms. I'd never touched a gun in my life and had always gotten a little frisson of fear when I'd seen law-enforcement personnel with their holstered handguns. Rifles like the one pictured in Davey's hands made me think of school shootings, or of kids who stumble across Daddy's gun in the attic and accidentally wound their playmates.