Page 27 of Butter You Up
Ethel catches my gaze, and her eyes twinkle. “What do you think, dear?”
I tap my chin, surveying the food. “Bread, obviously. Green beans, tomatoes, umm…what’s the leafy green?”
“Arugula.”
Alex, sitting next to me, leans over. “What are you doing?”
“I’m guessing which parts of the meal Ethel grew or made. I’m sure you didn’t make the chicken.” There’s a platter of grilled chicken being passed around. I notice Alex doesn’t take any. “What about the beans?”
“Fava, from out in the garden.”
“And what’s that?” I point at the pile of sauteed greens in a bowl.
“Chard.”
“Also from the garden.” I decide.
Alex hands me the bread. “The garden looks much better than it did this winter, Gran.”
“Thank you, dear. Anything else, Molly?”
I squint at her. “No?”
She shakes her head with a grin. “Made the butter again.”
“Dang it. I always forget about the butter. Making it just seems so old-school to me. Well, so does the bread, but I think it’s more believable for some reason. Maybe all those Covid bakers got me used to the idea. I didn’t hear about anyone making butter.” I tap my chin. “You can’t even make it in Stardew Valley, even though the cheese machines look like butter churners.”
Alex coughs. “Cheese machines?”
“Yup. Just goat cheese and cow cheese. Wait, have you made cheese, Ethel?”
“Not in a long time,” she says. “It’s a lot more complicated than butter.”
Man, Ethel is a wealth of knowledge. It’s the kind of experience that’s probably dying out. I wonder if they still teach that kind of stuff in home economics. Probably not, considering the state of the school system. Maybe they teach it in ag school.
I turn to Alex. “Have you ever made cheese?”
“Of course.”
“But you don’t sell it.”
He shakes his head.
We all fall quiet for a minute, eating our delicious farm-grown meal, until Alex interrupts. “How’s school, Collie?”
“I’m not a dog!” She makes a face at her brother but then updates the table on her volunteer work at the library, which leads to Kit telling ridiculous stories of himself as a boy. There’s a lull in the conversation at the first mention of Alex’s mom, who Ethel told me passed away about eighteen years ago, but then Ethan brings up a story about their brother, Samuel, getting picked on in school and how the older brothers played bodyguard until Samuel put a homemade stink bomb in the bully’s lockers.
Ethel serves strawberry crumble, pointing out to Lia that it’s gluten-free.
A sudden pang hits me. I wish my dad was here. Instead, he’s thousands of miles away, all alone.
CHAPTER16
ALEX
Dinner goes betterthan I expect it to. When Sam and Jackson were here in February for the service and the reading of the will, we all got together, but it felt different. It felt morose, with the one-two punch of Grandad having passed away and learning about the farm’s debt.
When Jackson and Sam left, we all returned to our defaults as if nothing had changed—they went back to their lives, and I went back to the farm.
