Digging In: A Novel(25)
At forty-three, getting dirty had lost its luster. If freedom really was another word for nothing left to lose, I didn’t want it. I had things to lose—a home, a son, and, hopefully, a garden. If that meant I wasn’t free, then I didn’t want to be free.
I pulled the car over with a jerk of the wheel. Jackie gasped as we exited the car. “Oh, Paige. What’s going on here?”
The soft earth was no match for the rain. Dark pools of water pockmarked the yard. Mud ran onto the sidewalk in wide streaks.
“AAAAYYYEEEEIIIIAAA!”
Jackie and I watched, wide-eyed, as a vaguely human-type form dashed from my back patio, making squelching sounds as it ran through the muck, leaping through the air, only to land on what looked like a tarmac made of garbage bags and duct tape.
“Trey?” I screeched.
He came around the back patio, plastered head to toe in mud. When he saw it was me, he did an about-face, took a running start, and skidded over the homemade slip-and-slide, spraying mud onto Mr. Eckhardt’s pristine white fence.
Another kid followed his lead. And then another, until my backyard resembled that Woodstock photo from so many years ago. It was impossible to tell how many kids slithered around in the mud, their limbs intertwined, their laughter sounding light and musical as the rain, Trey’s ringing out over the rest. I hadn’t seen him this happy in a long time. He looked alive.
He didn’t look like Jesse. He didn’t look like me.
He looked free. Really, truly free.
Maybe freedom had nothing to do with loss. Maybe it had everything to do with joy.
Jackie bent over and removed her shoes and tucked her socks inside. She tossed them into the car and then carefully rolled up her jeans.
“What are you doing?”
“I dunno,” she said while she waded into the muck. Weighed down by water, her blonde hair hung heavily down her back. She wobbled a little until she found her footing. “Can I try?” she called out to the group of kids but didn’t get an answer.
Jackie didn’t wait for one. She awkwardly slogged over to the patio. Without waiting for an opening, she half ran, half stumbled onto the slide, falling on her ass when she got to the end. She sat there for a moment, unmoving. “Paige?” she finally said. “I think I might have hurt something.”
Jesse didn’t like to get dirty. I didn’t either, but for him, staying clean was a near obsession. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out why Jesse had such an abhorrence of dirt; it merely took a glance at a few old photographs of the apartment he grew up in. The hodgepodge of relatives crammed into it had little time for keeping tidy. Jesse’s tiny room—narrow twin bed made with military precision, scratched dresser without a speck of dust, books shelved in alphabetical order—was an oasis of calm in a sea of chaos. Neatness and order became talismans for him, things to keep him steady when the twin tornadoes of poverty and crime swept through the world around him. He kept his habits into adulthood, and I was happy to join in. I liked the feeling of satisfaction brought on by cleaning my house. Feeling satisfied was right next door to feeling safe. And that was close enough for us.
Until death filled me in on a little secret—there was no such thing as a safe life. As much as I hated to admit it, that sense of satisfaction, that feeling of accomplishment when everything was in its rightful place, was gone. Jesse wasn’t in his rightful place, so what did it matter?
Jesse avoided dirt while he lived, but in death he was surrounded by it.
Now I was.
And I didn’t have a talisman to keep the tornadoes away.
“That was awesome,” Trey exclaimed, studiously avoiding eye contact with me. I’d hosed down all of Trey’s friends, sent them home with one old towel each, and put a pot of coffee on for Jackie. She’d twisted her ankle on her way to her ass, and now her foot perched atop a stool in my kitchen.
“That was so far from awesome,” I said. The rain had stopped temporarily, but I worried about what would happen if it started pouring again. Would all of my topsoil run off into the gutters? I wished I could ask Mykia to come over, but she was fifty miles away at her farm. She would know what to do. Her men had the foresight to throw a tarp over the pile of mulch—too bad they didn’t have a supersized one to cover the whole backyard. Maybe I’d text her later, but maybe I wouldn’t. I needed to start learning things for myself if I was going to get serious about this garden. I had a date with Google later.
“You’re going to help me put the plants on the porch and at the side of the garage,” I told Trey. “Tomorrow, if the backyard dries out enough, you’re going to help me plant the tomatoes. Those we can put in rows.”
Trey made a face. “I’m going over to Colin’s tomorrow.”
“No, you’re not.”
He went silent for a moment and then said, “Fine. I’ll help you. But afterward, I’m going to Colin’s. His dad’s painted the gallery wall, and I want to hang some of my stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?” Jackie asked innocently, though I thought she’d caught the look that said, sensitive topic!
“I’m kind of into photography,” Trey answered, suddenly shy. “Wait, I am a photographer. Well, sort of. Colin’s dad said I shouldn’t belittle myself just because I’m young and lack experience. He says talented people are born that way, so technically I have a lot of experience, even though I’m not an adult.”