Where the Watermelons Grow by Cindy Baldwin

Author:Cindy Baldwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Mama and Daddy didn’t say a single word to each other all through the rest of that day. They walked around and past each other, their silences bubbling up into thick walls that kept them separate even when they were in the same room, never meeting each other’s eyes or softening the hard lines that were their mouths into something like a smile.

Daddy had disappeared onto the farm not long after breakfast, the tractor sending up clouds of dust behind him. By the time Mylie and I got back in from picking in the garden after breakfast, something that took me three or four times as long without Daddy’s help and with Mylie’s interference, Mama had gone into her room and shut the door halfway. When I peeked through the crack, I saw her in there, lying on the bed, holding a book but not turning any pages, like she’d given up on being a mother or a wife or anything else at all.

The power was back on, though, making the ceiling fan above Mama’s bed lift her hair up in little wisps. At least that was something.

I got Mylie dressed and kept her with me all day, thinking dully that at least I’d gotten my way and Mama was resting. Not that it would do anyone much good if she kept throwing those pills away every morning, slipping them into her pocket like they weren’t the biggest blessing that had ever come into any of our lives.

We were kept busy at the farm stand that morning, a steady stream of tourists and locals coming by. Between that and trying to keep Mylie out of the produce, Arden and I hardly had a moment to ourselves to really talk, which was a good thing. I didn’t know how I could explain to her about Mama’s pills—but I didn’t know how not to.

We were halfway through our shift when the Bradleys’ blue car pulled off to the side of the road and Miss Lorena and Thomas got out. Miss Lorena waved as they walked over to us.

“I’ve got to tell you, Della, that your daddy sent Thomas home last week with some Kelly farm butter beans, and they were the best I’ve ever eaten.” She closed her eyes and smiled, like she was remembering the taste. “I decided this morning that it was high time Thomas and I came by to see what other offerings y’all have got.”

I grabbed the back of Mylie’s shirt before she could tear out into the road. “All this stuff’s from our farm or the Hawthornes’. That side over there’s certified organic, too. Actually, all of it’s pretty much organic right now, ’cause Daddy’s been changing things over on our farm this year, but only the Hawthornes have got that thing from the government.”

“Mmm,” said Miss Lorena, running her copper-colored hands over a row of watermelons. There weren’t as many as we normally had this time of year, with Daddy’s melons fighting the anthracnose so

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