Authors: Kathleen Van Cleve

Drizzle (11 page)

BOOK: Drizzle

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“Pass them around, please,” he asks, handing out what looks to be a bound notebook. On the cover is the name DUNBAR INDUSTRIES.

“What’s Dunbar Industries?” Patricia asks.

“It’s the name of the pharmaceutical company I’ve been working with for the past three years,” Dad says. He takes a deep breath and looks up at us, grinning. “I found out this week that they’ve just granted me a bigger, better underwriting for funding. That’s how promising the initial results of the rhubarb medicine study were!”

Honestly. He may explode. That’s how excited he looks.

“Which study is this?” Girard asks.

“I’m developing a strain of medicines for the nervous systems, medicines that specifically attack certain genes.”

“Marvelous,” Aunt Edith says slowly. “Just marvelous. But how is this different from what we’ve been discussing?”

Dad beams. “It’s a continuation of our discussion.” He pauses, as if he’s saying the most obvious thing in the world. “Edith! This will solve your problem!”

“My problem?”Aunt Edith says, echoing our thoughts. She says this softly, but Mom, Patricia, and I all notice the change in her voice.

“What you’ve been talking to us about. This solves it.” Dad smiles again, but his teeth are clenched and I notice that he’s gripping his notebook so hard that I can see the plastic cover denting in the middle.

Aunt Edith takes her notebook and opens it to one of the last pages, where there are numbers charted in graphs. She studies it for a long moment. The rest of us have become silent, watching her. Then she closes the notebook and looks up at my father.

“When will you get the money, George?”

The money?

Dad blinks. Mom tries to light a candle on the table that went out. It takes her three tries to light one match. It feels as if all Dad’s excitement has been sucked out of the room, leaving everyone tense.

“Edith—”

“No, I don’t want to discourage you. It’s all good news, and good work, but I thought I had made myself clear,” Aunt Edith says quietly.

I look toward Dad. His lips tremble, as if the upper one can’t follow orders from the lower one.

“What’s the matter, Dad?” I ask. My head feels wobbly. Something is definitely wrong.

Dad turns and looks straight at me. When he speaks, he sounds grim. “Your aunt needs money.”

“Ha!” I snort. I can’t help it. “Right. And I’m going to go to Mars. On my wings.” I instantly feel better. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m sure Dad’s joking.

But he doesn’t look like he’s joking. He’s glaring at Aunt Edith, his gaze sharp and pointed. My smile fades away.

“Aunt Edith’s the richest of any of us!” I look over at her, my mind filling with confusion. “I mean, you’re famous!”

“Don’t be slow-witted, Polly!” Aunt Edith snaps. “As if fame has anything to do with anything.”

It feels like Harry slapping me all over again.

“It’s too late,” Aunt Edith declares. She puts the notebook on the table.

“Dammit, Edith!”

We all jerk our heads toward Dad. He never curses. Never.

“What is going to be good enough for you?”

“Honey, not now,” my mother begins.

“She wants to sell the farm, do you all know that?” My dad whirls around as he speaks.

I must not be hearing correctly. Aunt Edith wants to
sell the farm?

My mom’s hand catches on a platter on a side table, and it makes a
clink
. “Worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Mom mutters.

Aunt Edith raises her head sharply. “Frankly, Christina, this doesn’t concern you.”

“Mom?” I try to stop this craziness. If I can just interrupt this argument, things will go back to normal.

Mom ignores me. “You want to sell the farm and you think it doesn’t concern me? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” Aunt Edith says. She pushes her chair out from the table. “We’ll talk about this at another time. Without the children.”

“Wait—Aunt Edith—” I try again, but it’s a wimpy sound, and Mom’s voice overpowers mine.

“My children can hear all of this,” snaps Mom.

“No,” Aunt Edith says. “They may not, because I don’t want them to. May I remind you that there are two people who own the farm. My brother and me. No one else.” She’s breathing hard. “And let me tell you one more thing. It is
my
decision. The farm
will
be sold.”

I hear the last word like a tumbling brick, like the concrete block I threw at the castle long ago when Grandmom died.

“Aunt Edith,” I say, confused. “Are you really—I mean—what are you—?”

Aunt Edith looks at me straight in the eye.When she talks she sounds kind, not mean. “Remember Emerson.
Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love.
” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “Ask me what you really want to ask me, dear. I won’t get mad.”

Okay then. “Do you really want to sell the farm?”

“Yes.” She pauses. “Actually, it’s already done. The farm is sold for a very generous price. I’m just waiting for your father to sign the papers.”

I’m rocked. Truly, completely rocked. I’m a baseball that’s been hit out of the park, out of the county, out of the universe.

“Edith.” Dad speaks gravely, more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “I told you, I am not going to sign.”

She lets out a short, harsh laugh. “Of course you are.”

Dad shakes his head and pushes his chair back from the table. “No. I own half of this farm, the same as you. And I say
no
.”

Aunt Edith swallows and her face hardens.

“I’ll ask you again tomorrow, George.” She puts both of her hands on the table and stands.

“I’m not going to change my mind,” Dad insists.

“We’ll see about that.” She gives Girard a small nod.

“We’re leaving.”

“Do not—” Mom starts, but Aunt Edith cuts her off. She gives Mom a small smile, and then turns to us. “Good night, everyone.”

“But—” Tears form and spill from my eyes. I can’t stop them.

“Oh Polly,” clucks Aunt Edith. “Please don’t.”

She is staring at me with such sadness and such pity that I can’t stand it. But the fact that Aunt Edith wants to sell the farm makes me not like Aunt Edith.

And I cannot
not like
Aunt Edith. I just can’t.

Then, in an instant, she walks out.

Even after we hear the door shut, none of us move for a while.

“Aunt Edith is rich,” I say. “She has a Mercedes. She knows the President.”

Mom laughs, crazily. “A Mercedes and a president, yes,” Mom says.

I get mad that she’s laughing. “You must have done something,” I tell Dad.

“Polly—” Mom begins.

“What did you do to her?”

“Polly—” This time it’s Dad.

“Just give her the money,” I say.

“You don’t know the first thing—” Mom says.

“You’re being cheap!” Aunt Edith is the one person in this family who actually knows anything—who actually
is
anything, and Dad’s making her want to sell the farm. That has to be it. I jump up from my chair.

“Sit down!” Dad orders.

But I run out of the house, with everyone staring after me. I don’t care. I’m mad, more mad than I’ve ever been. At my parents. At Aunt Edith. At Freddy. At Patricia. At Harry. It feels like all my anger is pooling into one hot, ugly stream. My cheeks burn; my heart pounds. I think my brain has blown up; nothing makes any sense.

I run over the rope bridge and through the castle and I run and run as fast I can over to the chocolate rhubarb field, row eighteen, column thirty.

“Harry, please talk to me!” I stare down at him, panting. “Tell me what’s happening!”

Slowly Harry moves all his leaves up to the
same bouquet position
.

I wipe my eyes to get rid of tears I didn’t even know were falling. “Why do you keep doing that?”

The other plants start to make bouquets too, one by one, until the entire field is covered in chocolate rhubarb bouquets.

“HELP ME!” I plead.

Suddenly, Harry slowly releases his leaves, stretching them out, flat, like he’s finally going to answer me, tell me what I need to know. I take a deep breath, relieved.

He stays there, outstretched, for a long, long moment.

“Yes, Harry?” I whisper.

Then, Harry’s leaves snap up into the bouquet position, that same terrible, unknowable, frustrating position.

And I snap too.

I don’t know what that means I don’t knowwhatthatmeans Idon’tknowI . . .

I don’t think, I just reach over and start ripping, leaf by leaf, yanking out the stalks, throwing down Harry’s stems, digging at his crown deep in the soil.

The other plants thunder around me, raising and lowering their stalks, rustling their leaves, but I ignore them, I ignore my parents’ disappointed faces, and most of all, I ignore Aunt Edith’s voice saying
the farm is sold, the farm is sold
.

I don’t stop until Harry is shredded. I’m gasping, but calmer. The other plants are now still. They’re watching me, probably certain that I’ll turn on them next.

My crooked finger throbs. Burning, terrible shame washes over me, and I’m sure I’m going to start sobbing, but I don’t. I can’t. I’m suddenly empty inside—as if by shredding Harry, I’ve destroyed myself too. I flop to the ground like an old ragdoll, falling on top of the tattered remnants of Harry. I just lie there, rubbing my finger and looking up at the dark and empty sky.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

Trust the Plants

I wake up late, looking up at the window in my turret. I have no idea how I got back to my bed.

The farm looks just like it did yesterday. Thriving and green, a swath of yellow where the tour buses park. There are people everywhere.

Then I remember.

HARRY.

I pull on clothes and rush out my door, sprinting down the stairway, out the door, through the fields, until I reach him. As I run, I tell myself that it’s all a mistake. That Harry will have magically reappeared, just like all the plants in the Learning Garden.

But when I get there, Harry’s leaves—what’s left of them—are flattened, shredded, in small and big and in-between green pieces.The stalks are torn in the middle, flung everywhere. I kneel down in the mound of black dirt. Some white roots are sticking out, green leaves and broken stalks scattered. I have no way to absorb the return of the river,
the ocean
of shame that floods through me. This is the worst thing I’ve ever done.

“Trust the plants,”
I hear my grandmom say.
“The plants will never steer you wrong, sweet thing.”

I look at the other plants, who are reaching out as they did a couple of weeks ago, touching their neighboring plants. Like they’re getting ready for some kind of battle.

Carefully I pick up Harry’s pieces, all the remnants of leaves and stalks and roots. I put them into my pocket. It looks like maybe, just maybe, there’s still something there in the crown—like deep in the soil, there’s a part of Harry that may have escaped my craziness. It’s very thin, very frail. I’m not usually that religious, but I make the sign of the cross, and then lean down and kiss that part of the plant.

The other plants have flattened out, touching each other like giant fans. I step around them, walking in tiny zigzagged paths throughout the field. Their stalks flutter slightly, but they stay where they are, stretching to connect with their neighbors.

“It affects everyone. It affects the whole farm.” I pause, realizing. “That’s why you clogged up the Umbrella.”

And then I understand. Harry was trying to signify that
the entire farm
was in danger, so he was using every bit of his plant body. That’s what the bouquet meant.

“You all knew Aunt Edith had sold the farm.”

The plants shake their middle leaves, in one unanimous yes. I look over to Harry’s place. He was trying to tell me. I glance over to my cherry tree. The mist hangs heavily under the branches, dense and mysterious. I want to collapse. But before I can do anything, I hear someone calling my name.

More like yelling my name.

“POLLY!”

I turn. Running down the entry road is Freddy, and Patricia, and Basford.

“POLLY!” they repeat.

Freddy reaches me first, panting. He can’t speak because he’s coughing so much; he must still be sick.

BOOK: Drizzle

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