Broken Ground by Karen Halvorsen Schreck

Author:Karen Halvorsen Schreck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

NINE

Next morning, the thick, heavy sunlight informs me I’ve slept later than usual. It was a restless night, filled with troubling dreams I can’t remember. Half awake, I get dressed. When I emerge from my room, I find a note from Alice on the kitchen table. I should help myself to whatever I’d like to eat or drink. They’ll look forward to seeing me early this evening when they get home from the factory, unless she hears yes or no from Hank. Then she’ll try to get home at lunch to tell me.

I find Thomas at work on garden beds. Talmadge has been trying to build these for a while—he’s dug the trenches into which the bed walls will be set. But he hasn’t had the time or the energy to complete the task. So Thomas’s Christmas gift to his parents was a promise that the beds will be up and ready for planting before he says goodbye.

While I slept this morning, Thomas nestled the first layer of four-by-four planks into the trenches. Now he sits cramped in a little red wagon that I assume belongs to the family next door, slathering thick glue along the tops of the planks. He nods good morning, then pushes himself along the bed’s perimeter and applies more glue. When he reaches the end of this tier, he pulls himself up out of the wagon, hops to the dwindling stack of planks, picks up another, and carefully sets it atop the adhesive. “Your timing is perfect,” he says. “Hand me a clamp?” He point at a metal device that looks something like the letter C, with a long screw extending through its base. I hand it to him, and he twists the screw, securing the two pieces of wood. He thanks me, then arches his back and rolls his shoulders, stretching his muscles. Then he retrieves another piece of wood, I hand him another clamp, and he does the same thing all over again.

In this way, over the next half hour or so, I help him set up the walls of one garden bed. There are two more beds to go, but Thomas is sweating, and he looks about as tired as I feel. I suggest he take a break. I haven’t had breakfast yet, and it turns out neither has he.

As it’s nearly lunchtime, we have that instead. Brunch, Helen would call it. I make two fried egg sandwiches, and we eat these on the back porch. It is nice out here in the sun. Thomas, leaning against the porch railing, looks more relaxed than I’ve yet seen him. As I tear a crispy edge from the fried egg white, I find myself telling him that Charlie liked his eggs cooked this way. “We called it bacon,” I say, and Thomas nods, smiling, and tells me that makes sense. At this, I catch my breath. I’ve never shared a sweet memory of Charlie, I realize. I’ve shared only sad ones.

Guilt hunches my shoulders. Quickly, I ask Thomas what’s next with the garden beds.

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