Harvesting Ashwood Minnesota 2037 (2 page)

Jeremiah extended a small dish of berries. I balanced it on top of my coffee mug. “We’ve come back full circle. Lately managing Ashwood has been like building a house from sand.” I made sure to smile at this young cook who would have known hunger, but not how to manage a kitchen during the early years after the
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. “I’ll take breakfast to my office. Have a good day.”

I turned right as I left the kitchen, walked through the residence’s original foyer, and into the glass walkway connecting our home to an office building constructed by the DOE. David mimicked its attractive fieldstone and brick exterior to warm the grim gray exterior of our home, a former government residence.

Through the glass I noticed small pieces of the stucco flaking into soil behind the landscaping shrubs. Built a decade earlier to be utilitarian, the structure proved difficult to maintain, much less beautify. David painted our tall front doors bright red, and we planted gardens of colorful flowers to mark the building as a home. While the surrounding greenhouses, fields, and stables showed prosperity, the original structure suggested the possibility of a different story. Each year the government drew back more support, and no small private business could find the kind of money needed to correct aging public work construction.

“Ms. Anne.” A young resident worker approached from behind.

“Yes, Antwone?”

“There’s a lady in the foods.” He took a breath as if the minimally cooler air of the residence provided great relief. “She wants to meet you. A first-timer called Smithson with a boy. Not a kid used to working. I can tell them.”

“How old is he?” I’d had few interactions with Antwone. His stubborn continuation of street mannerisms had grown annoying, particularly in school where he spent most of his class time showing great disinterest or even beating rhythms on a table.

“Old enough to work.” Magda was the one who found two knives in the one bag Antwone brought to Ashwood. Now, the boy who needed almost three days of sleep before we could begin to acclimate him to light duty in the kitchen showed this Smithson boy no sympathy. “Maybe ’leven years old. He missin’ teeth. Don’t look like he lost them fighting.”

“What does the woman look like?” I could tell he liked being a messenger, his scrawny chest puffed out and his hands flew in time with his words.

“White. Red-brown hair. Kind of like you.” He stopped. “How old are you, Ms. Anne?”

“Why is that important?”

“She might be the same age, but I din’t know what that is.”

“Thank you, Antwone.”

Eyebrows raised, he looked me up and down, more like a teenager than an eight-year-old who should be thinking about long division. Over a hundred children moved through Ashwood’s halls in my seven years owning the estate. Maybe the same number of adults worked somewhere on the estate over the course of a year’s production. None carried the possible upset of a woman and boy named Smithson.

“Tell her I’ll be in the small dining room in an hour.”

“Sure thing, Ms. Anne.” He nodded as if testing my direction against his own sense of protocol. “What about the kid?”

“The boy is here to work?”

“Last I saw he was eating oatmeal and looking like he might puke.”

“Did this woman ask for me to see both of them?”

Antwone’s eyes sparkled, as if we were having a fun talk. “Can’t say that. So I’ll tell her that she’s supposed to be with you in the small dining room in an hour. No kid.” He turned, feet ready to race back to the stranger.

“Antwone.”

He stopped, slightly turned, didn’t say a word. For a moment I wondered why we’d finished a conversation bereft of any protocol and now I felt a need to make sure this child had some level of understanding of Bureau of Human Capital Management’s expected behavior. Maybe the swagger Antwone affected each time he left the kitchen bothered me.

“You’ve been here four months, Antwone. You’re a bright worker. But you have to remember simple protocol. Let’s take your leaving from the top.”

Young enough to take his worker status for granted, he turned toward me. I didn’t choose to see his resentment. Living away from home and bending to government protocols were big challenges to young city kids used to making their own way while parents worked long hours. “I don’t mean disrespect, Ms. Anne.”

“I believe you. And I know you understand that we have to help prepare you for your next assignment.” I forced a small smile, hoping to show Antwone encouragement while my thoughts flew to a woman named Smithson. “Next time you’ll remember.”

He bowed his head slightly and rolled his eyes. Then left without even a head tip of respect. I ignored the slight, turned, and stared out the long windowed hallway as if I could see the Smithson woman and her boy. It had been over ten years since I had seen the child.

Chapter Three

The DOE office building housed David, his team of five engineers, and a research laboratory. For eight years David’s spacious office had overlooked the side orchards. Only twenty months remained in his government service requirement, and then the DOE identity chip buried under his left shoulder would be removed. I hoped to catch him and talk about the Smithson woman before he left.

Instead of doing his traditional last minute clearing of his desk, David sat reading.

“Jet departure has been rescheduled for this afternoon.” He looked up the moment I stepped into his office. “So I was reading an opinion piece about the challenges of returning government revenues to a tax-based system from our current fees schedules.” A topic we often discussed. “You have an interesting perspective on the subject. Maybe you should write a piece.” I still carried my breakfast, needed a place to set the cup and bowl down. “Something wrong? You look shaky.”

Stepping into the space with his precious collections of old baseball hats, athletic team mugs, and family pictures, I put my things on his table. “There’s a woman named Smithson in the day-labor group. She wants to see me.”

I watched David process the Smithson name. He rubbed his right cheek, tongue moving inside his mouth in time with his hand. “You were surrogate for a couple with that name.”

Retention of personal details ranked high in David’s strengths. His parents now lived with us, and I briefly knew his first wife, but all the people from my past were merely names and stories. “She has a boy with her who is about the same age as the baby I delivered.” We looked at each other. “Possibly not a coincidence.”

“I thought they lived somewhere in the eastern United States. I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to find the surrogates who carried Phoebe and Noah.” He paused, perhaps wondering if he should know this detail. “You’re going to see her?”

“In an hour.” My head and heart tried to connect, to make sense of the conflicts this woman brought into my day.

“Aren’t you curious?” David stood up, left his desk to join me.

“Of course.” I extended one hand, kept the other quiet. “It’s just that there have been other claims about blood ties that have been awful fakes. I’m reluctant to be put through all those emotions again.”

“I know, I’ve watched what it takes out of you.” He caught my hand. “I’d planned to wake up the kids and have a second breakfast with them, but I could join you and Ms. Smithson?”

“I’m better doing this alone. The kids will miss you. They need this time before you leave.”

“I thought I’d try to calm Phoebe about the language tests.” He sipped my coffee. “You got this from the kitchen.”

I acknowledged his taste of the real cream with a nod. “Just remember she’s only seven years old, David. The kids I taught before the depression wouldn’t even know what language proficiency meant.”

“Different world, Annie. And our girl is a genius.” He paused, tried to smile. “You’re right to remind me she’s young. I’d like to see her spend more time kicking a soccer ball, but there are powerful folks with plans for her future.” I heard resentment under the words although his voice lightened. “If you’re sure you don’t need me, I’ll go eat another bowl of oatmeal, the perfect hot-day cereal. Let me help you carry these to your desk.”

Alone in my office, work discipline abandoned me once I sent a communication to Magda to change our regular Tuesday morning meeting. Maybe because of our friendship, she stayed at Ashwood after completing her government assignment. Every year she absorbed more responsibility until she managed not only production in the greenhouses, fields, and orchards, but also the logistics of getting our goods to market. David’s father, Paul, brought grain farming knowledge to her team.

I drank my coffee and ate the berries, but I pushed the oatmeal aside. Like my over-stimulated mind, my hands refused to quiet. On my data pad, I opened a Twin Cities’ news site, forced myself to pay attention to the top ten articles. Statewide elections would be held in two months with no clear leaders among the three parties. Expanded school schedules for urban students posed problems for employers. Rumblings about the closing of a popular feeding station on the north side of St. Paul might cause parents financial problems. A volunteer guard unit departing for South America was short of its required numbers. I read nothing further than the first two paragraphs. My thoughts circled back to the Smithson woman.

I searched Bureau data about the Smithsons. At least a half dozen intellectual citizen Smithsons with East Coast residences appeared, mostly scientists or engineers. One couple stood out because they were both deceased, leaving behind two sons, one the right age.

David and I learned after Phoebe’s birth that babies carried by surrogates for intellectual couples were genetically enhanced to build a future generation of even smarter employees for the country’s top global products of consulting, research, engineering and policy development. We never told David’s family anything about why Phoebe spoke and read three languages and displayed a brilliant understanding of advanced math or how Noah, six months younger, began reading before he was three.

The Bureau managed the educations of these two, an eerie reality David and I found unsettling. The children carried by surrogates would always be financially cared for by the government, which made me wonder about the Smithson woman’s intentions.

I gave up trying to distract myself in my office and headed back to the main residence to see our kids. David sat on the beautiful wooden bench he’d built, one sleepy boy on either side. He rubbed John’s back while Noah stared without focus at the morning’s bright sunlight. 

“Hey, it’s my three favorite guys,” I said as I reached out to touch the boys. “I think your grandma might like help in the garden today when you’re through with school.”

Neither grumbled, unlike my brother and me who at this age felt that time to play was what happened after school. David’s children were required to spend a significant part of each day in educational activities. Our son walked an undefined path—not required by law to fulfill any daily labor as were the young workers of the estate, nor to complete the strict education program of his half siblings. A few months shy of John’s seventh birthday, we treated him like Noah’s fraternal twin instead of half brother, and kept their schedules the same.

“Mom, could we get a dog for Christmas?” Noah’s sweet, high voice bounced off the hallway’s slate floors before being swallowed in the tall clerestory-windowed foyer.

“It’s only September, Noah. I guarantee that you’ll think of other gifts you’d like by December.” We had plenty of cats working in the barns and outbuildings, but domestic dogs carried some political inappropriateness from the days of the
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when feeding starving people replaced feeding pets. The old grandfather clock marked the half hour. “I’ve got to keep moving,” I said. “I love you.”

Our early kitchen worker crew consisted of six children setting up breakfast under the direction of Amber, a twelve-year-old girl I would love to adopt if laws allowed. Most of our workers came from poor urban families who agreed to estate assignments to improve their children’s lives. When I was living from hand to mouth during the depression I might have thought this the best choice available. In turn, we made a commitment to these parents that their children would be fed, educated, prepared for some future work, and kept safe. Ashwood hadn’t ever failed on that commitment.

The Smithson woman stood looking at historical pictures of Ashwood hung on the walls of the dining room. She turned as I came in and waited for me to close the door.

“I’m Clarisse Smithson.” She tipped her head, a city-person greeting. “Thank you for meeting with me.” She hesitated for a second before acknowledging my position. “General Manager Hartford.”

Her voice, so well modulated that I knew she was university educated, brought me back to my frustration about available day labor. Clarisse was an urban woman not used to country work. Her pants had been tailored for long legs, her shoes purchased for walking on smooth surfaces. The hands she folded on the back of a chair looked irritated after an hour of pulling weeds. A once-expensive sun hat lay on her back, held in place by leather strings. Pulling out a chair, I gestured that she should do the same. She waited for me to be seated, then sat. The morning’s heat warmed the room. “What did you want to discuss?”

One of her hands inched toward her pants pocket. I wondered if she had written notes she wished to consult.  I noticed a small bulge, felt cold fear at the possibility of a knife missing security detection. She drew out a handkerchief, dabbed at her chin.