Page 25 of Grounded
They seemed always at odds, she and her grandmother. But her grandfather had been the buffer between them, drawing both of them to him, and in effect, to each other.
“You two are just alike,” he had said again, not long before he died.
Annie couldn’t understand. “How can we be alike when we are total opposites?”
He chuckled, his lips quivering in amusement under his thick white moustache. “You’ll see it one of these days.”
Annie missed him terribly. The pain was as fresh as the day she heard he was gone. Evelyn had called her in New York. She was between trips and able to get a flight to Lexington almost immediately.
When she got home, she heard the details.
“I saw him plowing the front field earlier that morning,” Joe Gibson had said. “Then near lunchtime, I noticed the tractor turning circles.” Joe’s voiced choked and it took him time to get the rest out. “I found him slumped over the steering wheel. He was already gone.”
Her grandmother had gone to town that morning, and in the only time Annie had ever seen her cry, she allowed Evelyn to hold her while she said over and over, “If I had only been at home …”
Annie pushed herself off the tractor tire and tried to shake off the darkness that fell on her with the remembering. It had to get better. If it didn’t get better, she would have to leave.
Chapter Ten
Beulah woke up thinking about the two thousand dollars hidden in the freezer. It was in a coffee can, tucked behind a frozen chicken and a loaf of bread.I need to get that money in the bank,she thought,what with the break-ins and robberies of late.Beulah wrapped a robe around herself and started down the stairs, holding the handrail and taking one step at a time. The early morning was quiet. Annie was still in bed, and the morning light had yet to break over the horizon.
Her left knee ached. Dr. Bright had given her a prescription for the pain, but she had never been one to take much medicine. If it kept on, she might need to move herself down to the small room downstairs, at least until autumn when she could get that surgery. If she did, she would wait until after Annie left. There was no need to make a big deal out of all this in front of her.
In the kitchen, she plugged in the percolator before calling Betty Gibson. The invitation to the Old Mill meant they wouldn’t be going out with the Gibsons to the Country Diner, their regular Saturday night plans.
Betty was hepped up this morning, torn to pieces over her cousin Bobby’s troubled marriage. “It’s a mess, Beulah, a terrible mess. His wife’s done gone out and got a tattoo and a piercing in her belly button and her, a forty-year-old woman! Poor old Bobby Ray don’t know what to do. A full-blown midlife crisis is what it is, plain and simple. She had them babies too young, and now she’s awantin’ to live her teenage years all over again.” Beulah listened another few minutes before finally breaking in and telling Betty she had to get off the phone. Betty could go on and on when it came to her family.
Beulah brought out her grocery list and looked it over. There were also a few things she needed at Walmart, much as she hated spending money at a store owned by a big corporation. If there was any other place in town to buy the things she needed, she would. Why, she had even taken to buying smaller rolls of toilet paper at the locally owned grocery to avoid patronizing the big chain. It was either that or drive all the way over to Rutherford for more of the same big corporations.
A new hoe from Duke’s Hardware was also on her list, as was gassing up her car and running it through the car wash. There was no weekly wash-and-set at the hairdresser for her. Every woman in town who went to the Snip and Curl had the same look. No, she could do just as well washing her own hair and rolling it herself. That was one less errand and expense on Saturday morning.
“Good morning,” Annie said, stretching and yawning in the doorway.
“You’re up mighty early,” Beulah said.
“I’m ready to tackle the garden,” Annie said, pouring herself coffee.
“It’s plenty dry enough now. Woody has the rodatilla gassed up,” Beulah said in her deep country accent. “You put it on choke, let it have gas, then pull the starter. It should start right up, but you might have to give it another pull.”
“Choke, gas, pull the starter. I got it,” Annie said, sat down across from Beulah at the farm table and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. “I remember watching Grandpa run the rototiller, but I never used it.”
“No, you were too young then and by the time you were old enough, you were gone most of the summer with church camp, cheerleading camp, practices and such.”
“I do remember picking tomatoes and beans, and breaking beans until my hands hurt. But you always did the canning.”
Beulah had wondered at times if they had done the right thing with letting Annie run around so much in her youth. She seemed to thrive with all the social activity and it was hard to keep the child sequestered on a farm with two old people, especially after losing her mother. As a result, they had slacked up on her chores, especially in the summer when there were so many other opportunities for young people. But she was here now and ready to learn. Maybe it wasn’t too late to impart some of the things her own parents had taught her and even to expect help from Annie while she stayed here.
Beulah took a breath and plunged in. “You’ll see where I already planted beans and corn in the first four rows. Nothing is planted beyond that. Till everything past those four rows. Next week we can plant tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and squash. We’ll plant more beans and corn in a couple of weeks so everything doesn’t come in at once.” Beulah shifted in her chair, finding a more comfortable place for her hip. “I am pleased to have you here, helping in this way.”
“It’s good to have something productive to do,” Annie said, gulping her coffee before getting up to refill her cup. “More?”
Beulah handed her the cup. “I’ll be back from town by lunchtime. If you have the garden tilled up and ready, I’ll show you the rest. If we have to finish up on Monday, that’s all right too.”
“I could work on it tomorrow afternoon,” Annie said.
Beulah looked at Annie sharply and started to speak.
“I know, I know,” Annie said, a smile spreading across her face. “It’s the Sabbath. ‘Work on Sunday, come hard on Monday.’ ”
