Page 62 of Grounded
The next morning, Annie dressed feeling there was much to do. The beans her grandmother had planted before she arrived were ready to pick, break and can. And they were expecting Evelyn, Jake and Camille for dinner. Annie had thought Jake might bring Camille over yesterday to meet her, but they had probably enjoyed their time alone together. A seed of jealousy tried to settle in her heart, but she pushed it away, glad for reasons to keep busy.
“While you’re in the garden, I’ll put a couple of pies together if you’ll put all the ingredients for me on the table,” her grandmother said. “I thought we’d pull out that chicken casserole I froze before the surgery and some of the biscuits. You’ll have us a mess of green beans, and that ought to be enough for supper tonight.”
“Do you want me to make up more sweet tea?” Annie asked.
“That’s fine, but add a little more sugar than you did the last time. It wasn’t quite sweet enough.”
Annie smiled to herself and headed out to the garden. She had put nearly a cup of sugar in the last gallon of tea. Sweeter was better, but she would just as soon not know how much sugar went into it.
Time in the garden was the best for thinking. And after all the talks with Jake, she was beginning to look at the work as life giving. It made her feel good to think she was growing her own food for once, that she knew where it came from and that it only traveled a few feet from her garden to the kitchen.
Perched on a small stool in between two rows of green bush beans, she worked her way down, plucking the pods from plants on both sides and dropping them in the basket. She picked the visible beans first, and then lifted the vines to find the beans hidden underneath. Her mind drifted to conflicting emotions that tumbled like a pile of clothes in a dryer. If only she could take each one out as if it were a piece of clothing and separate it from the rest, then she might get to the heart of the issue.
There was the impending deadline of work on Monday, unless Bob could get her an extension. She prayed for more time, but he hadn’t called yet and Annie felt like that might be bad news. Hopefully Evelyn would know some ladies who could help Beulah until Annie could come back.
Then there was Stella Hawkins. The wail she had heard at the stone house had haunted her in some deep place. Something was wrong, but with no clear evidence of anything criminal, there was nothing to do but watch and wait.
And what was up with this crazy feeling of jealousy with Jake? The hardest thing to figure out was her anger at him for sharing the crossover place with Camille. It was the perfect place to pause for conversation or even a kiss. Even she and Jake had shared a kiss there once when they were in middle school to see what all the fuss was over. But Annie had felt like she was kissing a relative. Jake agreed, and that was the last time they tried it.
So why, all of a sudden, was she thinking of him in a different way? Was she being needy or selfish at losing Jake’s attention? Or threatened by Camille who was everything Annie was not? Or, and this was the most disturbing thought, was there something truly growing between them, some tiny seedling that had sprouted in the last few weeks?
Annie stood and carried the two full baskets of beans into the kitchen. An aroma of baking desserts overwhelmed her when she opened the door.
“Chess?” Annie said, admiring the pies fresh from the oven.
“One chess and one lemon chess,” her grandmother said. “I didn’t know which Camille would like better, so I made one of each. Look at those beans! We have enough for supper and one canning. Let’s break them on the back porch.”
Annie carried the bowls and the beans out while her grandmother eased out with the help of her walker. With a bowl between them for the ends and strings and a large bowl for the broken beans, they settled in to work.
Out of the corner of her eye, Annie saw the black snake stretched out on the millstone and soaking in the afternoon sun. She started a little at first, then relaxed.
“How long has Booger been around?”
“Only a couple of years. Since he’s been here, my mice problem has gone away. This is a new spot. Last year, he liked the spot there around the pump. I always worried somebody would step on him there. I’m glad he’s got a new place.”
“I never thought I’d be keeping company with a snake,” Annie said.
Beulah chuckled. “We’re always keeping company with snakes. We just don’t always see them.” After a few minutes of work, Beulah spoke again. “How did the cemetery look? I want to get up there and put flowers down as soon as I’m able. I hated I missed Decoration Day.”
“What’s Decoration Day?”
“Memorial Day is what it’s called now, but it used to be Decoration Day.”
“The cemetery is beautiful and so peaceful,” Annie reached into the basket for another handful of beans. “Grandma, do you remember much about your brother?”
“Oh yes. Ephraim was older than me by seven years. In fact, mother always said I was a welcome surprise when I came along. I was only ten when he went into the Army. He was a good brother, looked after me and played with me.”
“I always wanted a brother like that. I guess that’s partly why Jake and I were so close.”
“It was a wonderful thing to have. I guess our age difference was enough that he paid even more attention to me than if I had been closer to him in age. He played games with me, brought me a piece of candy when he went into town, and rode me around on his back, acting like a horse. He was sweet on Bessie Sprinkle, and she became like an older sister.” Beulah sighed. “But then Pearl Harbor came, and our world changed. Ephraim enlisted immediately. Daddy was proud of him, doing his duty, but we were all so sad to see him go, wondering if he would come back to us. But we’d been attacked, you see, and there was no going back.
“For a while, letters came with foreign stamps, and we heard the updates both on the radio and on the movie newsreels. When we heard the news from Anzio, everything changed. The letters with foreign stamps stopped coming and Bessie Sprinkle, the girl he was sweet on, married another boy.”
Beulah sighed and leaned back in the chair, lifting her chin and closing her eyes in memory. Annie thought what a strong face it was: solid jawline, giving her the look of someone who knew what she was doing and where she was going; a straight nose; and few wrinkles. She wasn’t pretty, but she had a beauty of her own that came from inner character and dependability. Her eyes could be intense and straightforward, or kind and gentle, depending on the subject. Annie was surprised to see a small bead of water make its way slowly down her cheek from the outside corner of her eye. When she spoke, her voice was steady. If Annie hadn’t seen the tear, she would not have known Beulah felt any emotion.
“Thousands of our boys died there. Most families couldn’t afford to bring them home, and so they were buried there in an American cemetery. The government paid for the burial if you let them stay. I’ve seen pictures of the cemetery on the news. They did a special on it one night, and it showed rows and rows of white stones, under these pretty Italian trees that looked like big green umbrellas. I thought I’d like to go there someday, for Ephraim’s sake, and look up the boys he talked about in all those letters. I don’t know if they lived or died.”
“We brought him home,” Annie said, surprising herself with how closely identified she felt with a great uncle she never knew.
