Ade took another cleansing breath, let it go slowly. He had left a sixth-floor apartment overlooking the Charles River, in one of the most luxurious buildings Boston had to offer. For this.
No more fine dining in the city he had grown to love. No more evenings discussing agricultural practices and global warming with colleagues he respected even if he didn’t like them so much. It was all gone. Every crystal glass. Every cashmere sweater. Even his car, gone. He supposed he was grateful, considering the humiliating circumstances. None of it had been real. None of it had been his. He gave it all back willingly because what he wouldn’t hand over was his pride.
He flopped backwards onto the futon, arm covering his eyes, making it instantly night. Conflicted. That was what he was. He was glad to be out of the university, away from the backstabbing and lies, but he missed Boston. He was grateful for the solace of this farm, but it disgraced a career he’d worked ruthlessly to build.
Find who you were, my son. Let go of who you became. His mother’s words crept into his head. Despite their combative relationship, he and la jefa had always been especially close. She demanded more from him than she did the others, because—once upon a time—all their hopes rested on him. His earnings, his learnings, pushed the family farm out of bankruptcy and into a thriving venture exceeding all expectations, but he had lost much of himself along the way, in little bits and unnoticeable pieces. He had failed his mother. He failed himself. Because he let it all go to his head and became someone he never meant to be. Because of a faithless woman with the power to ruin him, and the will to do exactly that.
* * * *
Mom and Pop wouldn’t be happy with me. Then again, they’re not around, so I guess it’s fine. They moved out of Bitterly after…you know…and took my little brother with them. I don’t blame them. There are times I just want out of this town too. Mom, Pop and me were just starting to talk about college when I got so twisted up in love that wasn’t really love at all. Not that I knew it then. They thought I was mooning over that nice boy…what was his name? I think it was Victor. I let them think so, anyway. I was such a dimwit.
I followed her home, the Negro lady. Her name is Savannah. Isn’t that pretty? She has one of those Gone-with-the-Wind accents. Golly, I loved that movie. I think I saw it a dozen times. She sounds just like Scarlet O’Hara. She lives on a farm outside of town called Savvy’s. Oh, hey! Savvy. Savannah. That’s really keen. I like her even more now.
Mom and Pop would scold me for following her. Hadn’t I learned my lesson? But what else can happen to me? I ask you. Well, gee, plenty, I guess. But I just couldn’t help myself. It feels…good…yes, good to be something other than bored and lonely and scared. And I really want to know what that angry thing always near her is.
Going into people’s houses can be tricky. I’ve seen some get stuck to a house, the way the old lady seems stuck to the cemetery. I am stuck enough to Bitterly, but at least I get around. When I went back to her bedroom, she was asleep at the bottom of her bed. The angry thing was just a black spot in the corner, and the little girls were sitting with her, one at her head and one at her feet, like little guardian angels. Now this new man is here with his Ricky Ricardo accent, and something tells me to stick around a little while longer. But I won’t stay long. Honest to Betsy, I won’t.
Chapter 5
star-strewn firmament
Edgardo and Raul spent the day out in the fields. Savannah had Adelmo take their lunch to them. She ate her own in her office, alone, caught up on paperwork, recorded sales from the Fourth, and placed an order with Darla and Sandra to restock her shelves with the herbal remedies they were locally famous for. That, in turn, reminded her of her promise to give them her very small but luxurious supply of lambswool left over from last season. They were going to spin a portion of it for her in exchange, and dye it purple so she could finally make a pair of booties for Benny and Dan’s baby girl, as she had meant to do before the child was born. Now Irene was eight months old and still, no booties. For the colder months, Savannah told herself. Shucking off the flannel shirt she’d thrown over her tank top, she left the air-cooled office.
As it always happened, the earthy, sweet and comforting aromas stopped her in her tracks the moment she stepped into the drying shed. Herbs hung from the rafters in all states of preservation. Flowers, too. She had bouquets of roses tied up with ribbon, delphinium, hydrangea, and Russian sage. Soon enough, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace would hang there as well, awaiting the autumn wreaths she and Benny would make. Autumn was Savannah’s favorite time of year, and a big reason she stayed in the north when months and months of snow made her long for the sunny south.
The box of lambswool sat on the edge of the loft space, just a little too high for Savannah to reach it. One of the high school students put it up there. A basketball player, if she remembered right. The last thing she wanted to do was go out to the barn, fetch the ladder and maneuver it through the shed, hoping not to break any of her drying plants. But she’d been meaning to get the lambswool to Darla and Sandra for almost a year. Now or never. She went for the ladder.
As she crossed the yard, Edgardo, Raul and Adelmo were coming back from the fields. She waved over her head and continued on.
Adelmo shouted something, waved to his father and uncle, and jogged over to her. “You have a beautiful piece of land,” he said, not even slightly out of breath. “Just the right size to supply the area with good, seasonal produce.”
“A lot of the farms around here went big,” she said, “and ended up going under. That’s why I have this farm to begin with. I have more land than I use for growing. I let nature have it back.”
“Ah, I did not know.”
“Your father and uncle probably don’t either. It’s not something that ever came up.”
“Perhaps you would show it to me. As good as the soil is, there are benefits to rotating sites that soil amendment does not allow for.”
“Sure, but just remember—I don’t want to go bigger. What I have is plenty.”
“Duly noted.”
Duly noted? Savannah was close to certain no such phrase existed in Edgardo or Raul’s vocabulary, English, Spanish, or the rural tongue they shared. Savannah shrugged it off. She’d known the man a few minutes within scant hours. He had a story. She simply didn’t know it yet. “Do you want to go now?”
Adelmo checked his watch. “It is already three o’clock. Is there enough time? You can show me tomorrow, if you wish.”
“Are you saying I need four hours to get myself presentable for dinner?” She looked down at her jeans. They were actually quite dirty, even if she’d only been doing paperwork.
“Forgive me, no,” he said. “Only that I don’t know how extensive your land is, and where it is. In Ecuador, our family farm is dotted all over the mountain. One field is a full hour away from the farmhouse itself.”
“I was teasing you,” Savannah covered. “Mostly. I can’t tomorrow. I volunteer at a childbirth clinic a few towns over on Wednesdays. There is plenty of time left now, if you want. Or we can go on Thursday.”
“Let us go now then.”
“This way to the coot.” She waved him onward. “Oh, damn. I almost forgot. I have to get this box down first before I forget again. You want to give me a hand?”
Adelmo wasn’t tall, but he was taller than Savannah. Ditching the ladder idea, she led him back to the drying shed.
He, too, was stopped in his tracks upon entering, his smile one of bewildered joy. “My Lita had a shed like this. She is the one who first taught me herb lore.”
“Lita?”
“My grandmother. A gifted herbalist. She has forgotten more than I will ever know about plants and their medicinal uses.”
“How much do you know?”
Adelmo blinked, his boyish joy slowly fading into something…else. “You really know nothing of who I am, do you. My father never told you what I have been doing in the United State
s all these years? You did not Google me?”
“Google you?” Savannah laughed softly. “What kind of person does that? No, he never told me.”
“Well, then.” Adelmo clapped his hands, rubbing them together. “We have much to discuss at dinner. Let us save it for then, shall we? Where is this box you need?”
He wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the box on the loft shelf, but Adelmo easily pulled himself onto the small landing and handed it down to her. Like his father, his spare frame boasted no softness. Savannah took the box and watched his carefully executed swing to the ground more avidly than she’d intended.
After depositing the box in her office and sending an email to Darla that it was waiting there for her, Savannah took Adelmo out on the coot—an ancient, all-terrain vehicle she bought along with the farm. It had been a long time since she surveyed her own holdings. Fields that used to grow corn, corn, and more corn were overgrown with weeds, what appeared to be pumpkin vines, and, of course, corn growing wild. Savannah pointed out landmarks and told Adelmo what stories she knew of the old farming family that had owned the land since Bitterly was first established back in the 1800s.
“Apparently, the Larsons were one of the original families here.” She switched off the engine so she no longer had to shout over it. “They, and the Farcuses, the Gardners, the Bossys, and the Wells. I’m told they all moved out here together from some coastal town that doesn’t exist anymore, founded Bitterly, then lorded over it right up until I bought this farm from the last of the Larsons.”
“Are there none left?”
“Sure, but diluted. And this—” She motioned to the landscape. “—is all that is left of one of the great Bitterly empires.”
Adelmo smiled. Bright, July sunlight squinted his eyes. He hopped out of the coot, inspected a pumpkin vine snaking its way out of the bramble.
“This land reminds me of a fairy story Lita used to tell to all the children when we were young. Jaqayman, the forgotten garden tended by the little folk. All manner of food grew there, hidden by the bramble humankind wouldn’t look beyond. They tended and harvested and helped the animals stay alive all through the winter.”
“Jaqayman,” Savannah repeated. “I like that. And I had no idea there was so much growing here. The animals are welcome to it. I imagine they’ve come to depend upon it at this point.”
“Oh, yes. I am certain they have. And perhaps that is why you never have trouble with them in your working fields.”
“I wouldn’t say never.” Though Savannah couldn’t remember the last time more than a stray deer or two caused any damage. She supposed it was the fence—even though it was a flimsy thing, easily jumped. Or maybe it was something Edgardo and Raul did either with scent or noise. Whatever it was, Adelmo’s theory was an interesting one.
“Would you mind if I explored up here,” he asked. “I will be of more service to you and this farm if I find heirloom varieties of corn, tomatoes, and pumpkins than I can be doing the menial tasks my father wishes me to do.”
“Menial?”
Adelmo’s brow furrowed. “I chose the wrong word. What I meant was, you really don’t need me here while my father and uncle are still running the farm. They will find things for me to do, certainly, but you have an expert in agriculture, most specifically, in such things as heirloom vegetables.”
“I do?”
He grinned. “You do. For instance, have you any idea how much of the sub-regional varieties we have lost to the global market? Did you know that there were once as many varieties of peaches as there are counties, just here in Connecticut alone? Each town has its own regional peculiarities, even subzones that account for the differences. But certain peaches yield bigger crops, travel better, ripen after picked. It is a sad, sad thing to lose, especially considering what sells in supermarkets is less nutritious, and tastes like cardboard.”
“Well, goodness, sugar, tell me how you really feel.”
An eyebrow arched and fell quickly into a broad smile. “I find I am regaining my passion for the subject in a more visceral way, here on your lovely farm.”
Visceral? And he misspoke a word like menial?
“What you say,” she said, “is one of the main reasons I stay small. I want to grow as close to organic as I can manage, and I do many heirloom varieties.”
“I have seen your heirlooms, and I am dubious. Forgive me, Savannah, they are not true heirlooms unless the seed comes from a plant variety grown before 1951. Many varieties now say they are heirloom, but they are not.”
“Really? Is that scientific fact or your opinion?”
He shrugged. “A little of both. I am an all or nothing man. If you wish to claim you grow organic, heirloom produce, you must truly be growing organic and—”
“I said mostly organic,” Savannah interjected. “There are a few fertilizers and pesticides your father and uncle convinced me I should use. Harmless, but not on the list of certified allowances. I’m small enough to claim it anyway, but I don’t.”
“As you shouldn’t.” His brow furrowed. “It is a constant battle with Taytay and Tío—”
“Taytay and Tío?” She chuckled. “Really?”
Adelmo shrugged and tapped his head. “I forget myself when I get worked up.”
“I know that tío means ‘uncle,’ but I’ve never heard Taytay before.”
“It is…rural, as am I, at heart.”
A layer unintentionally revealed? Something skeptical nudged at her, but Savannah stored the detail. “I’m sorry. I rudely interrupted you. You were saying? About organic?”
“Ah, yes. What I was saying was that my father and uncle, and too many others, see cost and ease as an acceptable alternative to doing things right.”
“They don’t run the farm right?”
Adelmo’s nose crinkled. “Let us say, they don’t run it entirely as I would.”
“And as we say in Georgia, those are fighting words.”
“Fighting words that have caused many fights among us.” He winked. “It is one reason I am still here in the United States when I was supposed to be educated here, and then return home some twenty-five years ago.”
“That’s a long time to carry on.”
“Long enough for them to get old and have some of the fight go out of them.” Adelmo turned a full circle, arms spread. “The natural world is still a mystery to us, but I believe the artificial things we put into our bodies are the cause of many ailments. Advocating a paleo diet is the other extreme. We are no longer cavemen living on raw meat and tubers.”
“I take it you are against bio-engineered produce?”
“To an extent, yes. But not completely.” Adelmo paused, held her gaze in that discomfiting stare. “And we are getting ahead of ourselves again. We will have nothing left to discuss this evening.”
Savannah cocked her head. In the hours they’d been riding in the coot, exploring the fallow fields, the conversation had not faltered. Not once. For Savannah, who lingered more in silence even as a child, that rarely happened. She was used to Benny, who could carry on a conversation all on her own, and the Coco sisters, who competently dominated any gathering they were in. This was alien. It was new. Out in the wild part of her farm, she’d been able to talk unwarily, unafraid of stumbling into a past that would muzzle her. And she found she rather liked it. She glanced skyward.
“It’s getting late anyway. We should get back and clean up.”
“Will you show me how to drive this vehicle?” he asked as they approached the coot. Savannah turned the ignition, and slid over to the passenger’s side.
“See that lever,” she pointed. “Slow or fast. That’s pretty much it.”
* * * *
White jeans, a floral button-down, and the silver, strappy sandals she almost never wore seemed appropriate attire for dinner with a colleague. Savannah felt both professional and pretty without being dressed-up—as if for a date. This was definitely not a date
. But she was interested in solving the mystery of this new man in her life. Slipping in a pair of silver hoops as she breezed out of her bedroom, she pretended it was a mindless act done on the fly.
“Ah, you are punctual as well as lovely.” Adelmo was just coming out of his bedroom, fastening the bottom buttons of his lavender shirt. Lavender. What man in Bitterly would wear lavender? What man in Bitterly would wear anything more colorful than plaid? Between his shirt and the clogs on his feet, his otherness stood out. He wore it well.
“Thank you. You clean up pretty nicely too.”
“I try. Are you ready to go?”
“Ready. And hungry. We’ll take my car.”
“As I have no vehicle of my own, that would be a good idea.”
His smooth, musical voice held no sarcasm. His smile was not a sneer. Savannah let her raised hackles ease. It had been a long, long time since Doc’s always-veiled insults chipped away at her self-esteem. Savannah thought she’d gotten over it.
“After you.” He gestured to the stairs and Savannah realized she’d been staring.
Instead of trying to explain, she murmured a thanks, sailed down the steps through the kitchen, and grabbed her keys from the rack on the way out the door. In the fresh air, the relative cool snapped her out of whatever sudden panic had her in its grip. She took deep breaths.
What the hell is wrong with you, sugarbeet? She heard her Auntie Bea’s voice as clearly as if she were standing beside her. Savannah had no answer. Maybe later when she couldn’t sleep for the pounding in her head. She got into the car as Adelmo, seemingly unaware of the mad dash she imagined she’d just taken, did the same.
“Seatbelt,” she said.
“Always. I have an American driver’s license, if you’d prefer I drive.”
Waking Savannah Page 4
