Spindle City by Jotham Burrello

Author:Jotham Burrello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2020-06-02T20:58:09+00:00

land between my hands

Joseph left June Street at three-thirty, motoring down Main Road in Tiverton. He crossed Stone Bridge and entered Portsmouth, passing Island Park near four that afternoon. Middletown was a short distance farther. He drove slower than usual, hoping he’d run out of gas or a gale might blow up from Mount Hope Bay and him an excuse to turn back home. But Wiggins had filled the tank for the weekend, and the Lord had delivered another brilliant late-summer day. In the months following his Patriots’ Day visit to White Mountain, Joseph had replayed his altercation with Hollister in the cafeteria. He’d begun to question his abandonment of the boy. All summer this poisonous stew simmered, and now, going to see Maria for the first time since the accident, the pot boiled over.

Otis Bartlett had bought the Middletown farm as a real estate investment, not for its rich black soil. Before Hannah Cleveland had handed Joseph the mill, he’d planned to quit and set about making the farm a profitable business. João turned a profit now, but a substantial infrastructure investment was necessary to sell large quantities of his butter and milk out of state. In their state-of-the-farm meeting last year, when João said distributors could handle sales, Joseph expressed his fears about putting too many middlemen between the farm and its customers. João’s other brainstorm, to add cattle to the dairy operation, was swiftly vetoed.

The sweet honeysuckle that rimmed the eastern edge of the property brought a smile to Joseph. It had been Lizzy’s idea to plant it, and though her nursery and greenhouse plan never grew out of its small plot near the house, Kitty maintained it religiously. At the turnoff he honked at Kitty packing up her vegetable and flower stand. She was a short, stout woman with muscular arms and deeply tanned skin from another summer spent working outdoors. Joseph had always been fond of Kitty. She’d been widowed some ten years, but with João’s help, she kept up her family’s vegetable operation. She and her two daughters managed the stand from June through September, selling out most days to day-trippers and summer residents of Newport.

Kitty stood and waved fruit flies off the tomatoes when the car stopped. She turned the bruised patches down. When she didn’t hear a car door slam, she stood and raised her hand to block the sun.

“Well, Mr. Bartlett, you are a welcome sight for lonely eyes.” Though she was a few years older than Joseph, she insisted on calling him Mr. Bartlett out of respect for Otis. The old man had allowed her family to stay on the farm after the foreclosure, though he’d politely asked the brother who had run it into the ground to leave. “What brings you out to the country on a late Sunday?”

“Some business with the boss,” Joseph called over the engine’s hum.

“Been a time since you been out this way.”

“Want a ride to the house?” Joseph pointed up the road. “You can remind me of the way.

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