Watermelon Summer (20 page)

 

    The truth, though, was that the younger Mom didn't sound like me—she
sounded like Kat.  Excited and depressed in turn, my mother had left
Greensun to give me a better life, relinquishing her hold on the three
things she held most dear—my bio-dad, my half-sister, and this farm.

 

    Even at thirty, Mom knew she was making ripples that
would have far-reaching consequences, but she'd decided that her own
daughter wouldn't be raised in the willy-nilly parenting style Kat had
received.  The younger Mom didn't want me to grow up in a world divided along
gender lines.  Instead, she needed me to know I could achieve
anything I dared to dreamed of.

 

    So she had poured out all of her mourning onto this
tear-stained note, tucked it away, then left Greensun so she could grow
up and raise her own daughter.  Looking up at my mother now, I
could see that she had matured, but still kept that spark of glee that
had drawn her to Greensun in the first place.  And I finally
admitted to myself that I was glad Mom had made every decision the way she did,
because those decisions had molded me into the person I was, which was
exactly who I wanted to be.

 

    While I was coming to this conclusion, Mom was
thinking something entirely different.  "Kat is my one true
regret," Mom told me, or maybe told herself.  "It makes me wonder
if
my abandonment of your sister isn't the real root of her recent behavior
after all."

 

 

 

    Every Greensun Ex from the meeting, plus some, had
returned for Glen's funeral the following day.  We gathered in an
old cemetery on the corner of Greensun land, where the headstones were
long, flat rocks turned on their end, most with no names visible. 
"Even though," Arvil explained loudly, "Glen really wanted us to build a
platform and leave his body exposed to the elements so the vultures
could pick at his flesh."

 

    "A Tibetan sky burial," Bill agreed, nodding along as
if he thought the spectacle would have been interesting to see.

 

    "But of dubious legality," Arvil continued,
reclaiming the figurative center stage.  "Instead, we'll honor
Greensun's founder with an Appalachian tradition of digging his grave by
hand.  And if you don't want to dig, there's plenty of food to go
around."  Then Arvil picked up a shovel and suited actions to
words, being the first to break through the grassy ground.

 

    The only other funeral I'd been to, that of a distant
relative, had been a hushed affair—closed casket in a funeral home
overflowing with flowers and peopled by men in dark suits.  This
felt more like a party, although one with an undercurrent of sadness,
and it seemed the thing to do was to mingle, so I did.

 

    "And you are the long-lost sister!" exclaimed a woman
Mom's age...who did indeed look remarkably similar to me. 
"Angela?" I asked and was informed that the woman arm-in-arm with my
lookalike was my other sister, Jessica.  Even though I had the
strongest physical resemblance to Angela, it was Jessica who struck me
as a potential soul mate.  The latter had some of Kat's exuberance,
but it was tempered with an earthy wisdom that felt like the spirit of
Greensun itself.

 

    "Do you want to meet our little brother?" Jessica
asked, waving goodbye to Angela and drawing me to the outskirts of the
crowd where a tall, dark stranger was leaning against a car. 
"Peter!" she called, while we were still fifty feet away.  "Stop
brooding and come say hello to Thia."

 

    The ensuing conversation was a bit stilted since we
were total strangers, but I liked Peter right away, and appreciated
Jessica even more for being the bridge that brought us all
together.  Still, when my eyes roamed across the crowd and saw the
person I'd been looking for all morning, I made polite excuses and took
my leave.

 

 

 

    Jacob didn't say a word, just engulfed me in the hug
I'd been yearning for.  I imagined I could feel the good energy
floating from his body into mine, and I was able to muster the first bit
of happiness I'd felt since opening Pandora's box.

 

    "Thia, I'm so sorry," Jacob told me once we'd finally
stepped apart enough to look at each other's faces.  He reached
down to take hold of my hand, as if unwilling to be separated from me
entirely, and I leaned into his shoulder to extend the bond.

 

    "I'm thinking of going back to the name Forsythia," I
answered him quietly, my face starting to crinkle up into tears as the
memory of Kat's actions filtered back up to the surface.  Between
Glen's death and Mom's arrival, I'd managed to forget about my
half-sister for nearly a day, but the wound was still raw to the
touch.  I dreaded having to explain the events to Jacob, but it
turned out Arvil had already broken the news.

 

    "You can't let Kat take away everything good you've
done this summer," Jacob told me firmly.  Then he changed gears and
asked, "Did I ever tell you that I looked up the name 'Thia' on the
internet a few weeks ago?"

 

    His words surprised a slight smile onto my
lips.  Even though Jacob and I were a couple now, it still thrilled
me to know he was thinking of me even when I wasn't present. 
"What did you find out?" I asked, willing to be diverted onto a
less-loaded topic.

 

    "Thia was a Greek goddess," Jacob informed me, "Daughter of the earth and sky."

 

    "And mother of the sun and moon," added Mom, who had
walked up behind us without me noticing.  "I used to call you Thia
before you were even born," she added, "Which is probably where Kat got
it from.  I didn't want to saddle you with such a strong name,
though, until you grew into it."  I almost laughed, thinking of the
name Mom had saddled me with instead.  But her next words turned
the laugh into a lump in my throat.  "I see you've grown into
'Thia' now," she concluded.  Then, looking at Jacob.  "I'm
Kat's mother.  It's so good to finally meet you."

 

 

 

    Even though I'd itched to see Jacob's face in the
crowd, I'd been dreading Mom's reaction when she met him.  Bringing
your first boyfriend home to meet the parents is always dicey, but so
many things complicated this particular rendition of that age-old
drama.  There were Mom's feelings about mountain men for one, and
added on top of that was the still-unresolved college issue.  With
my eyes, I begged Mom to be polite, and she didn't let me down.

 

    "I don't know if the two of you want to help dig,"
she said, "But it looks like the first round of excavators is getting
tired."  She led us over to the deepening grave, chatted briefly
with the current workers, and ended up with two shovels for the three of
us to share.

 

    "I've been to a few of these mountain funerals," Mom
explained, choosing a spot to work at the far end of the grave, "And
what I've learned is that you want to put in your time first
thing.  Earth is much harder to dig the deeper you go."  She
shoveled for only a minute before passing the tool off to Jacob, then,
trailing a comforting hand over my arm, she left us alone. 
Although my mother didn't say the words, I could read her approval of
Jacob in the way she looked him straight in the eye with a smile (and in
how she was willing to leave me alone with him).

 

    It was comforting to be digging when my head and
heart were full of so many conflicting emotions.  My spade bit into
the soft earth easily, and my time in Greensun's garden made me think
momentarily about the rich, dark color, so good for nurturing
seeds.  I glanced over at Jacob, who was intent on his labor, and I
remembered the line my father had underlined in his copy of
Peace Is Every Step
,
and which I'd read two nights ago while hunting down my father's
messages.  "When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is
your presence," the Buddhist guru wrote.  "How can you love if you
are not there?"  The words had struck me as profoundly ironic
coming from my father, but now I was glad to have read them. 
Whether or not he loved me in the romantic sense, I realized that Jacob
was offering me the greatest gift he could just by being present at my
estranged father's funeral.

 

    "Well, isn't this cute."  The cutting words
broke through my thoughts, and I felt like fleeing as I turned to the
look at the source.  "The couple that digs graves together stays
together," she continued sarcastically.

 

    Unfortunately, the song was right—Kat had come back.

 

 

 

    "What are you doing here?" Jacob demanded, anger fully coloring his voice for the first time in my memory.

 

    "What are
you
doing here?" Kat retorted.  "
I'm
here to attend my father's funeral.  Oh, and to collect my share of the inheritance."

 

    Blue eyes and brown eyes flashed, but before the
exchange could turn any nastier, Arvil had stepped between the
combatants.  "Well now, slow down a minute," he drawled, his accent
becoming thicker as he took on the role of a gentle southern
sheriff.  "Last I heard,
I
was
the administrator of Glen's estate.  And I seem to recall your
father gave a challenge that still has eleven months to run before we
can think about splitting up this land among his children."

 

   "That
letter
is
old news," Kat replied, turning to Arvil as a more-worthy object of her
fury.  "This property is worth a lot more than $30,000, and I want
my share.  I should have about $80,000 coming to me after we sell
Greensun on the open market, and that's what we're going to do."

 

    When Kat first showed up, I was so heart-broken to
see her in the flesh that I hadn't even been able to look my sister in
the eye.  But now, as my friends waged the battle for me, I
realized that I needed to face Kat myself.  I stepped up out of the
grave so I'd at least be close to her level, took a deep breath, and
spoke as firmly as I could.  "The first $2,000 wasn't enough for
you?" I challenged.