“I’m rich because of the cherries. We can’t let them get ruined.”
Well, that was eye-opening.
“I’m going out there. You come as soon as you can.”
A half an hour later, when I walked outside it was still barely raining. It would pick up soon, though. Soon. You could smell it in the air. The sky hung low and gray, with clouds that looked bloated and heavy. The wind was strong and turned them into a swirl. I hurried out to the orchard.
Nana Cole was already there with Jasper and a small crew of migrants. Bev and Jan were there as well. They all wore rough, cotton aprons that went over their heads and created a deep pouch over their bellies. Everyone reached up into the trees and pulled cherries down into their pouches.
Seeing me, my grandmother lurched over and handed me an apron. Honestly, even as I was getting ready and walking out, I hadn’t fully connected with the idea that I would have to actuallypickcherries. Oversee, observe, make suggestions those were all things I was prepared to do, things I was good at, but actually picking fruit? That just seemed wrong.
And then, as I snatched the first handfuls of cherries out of a tree it began to really come down. A half an hour later I was drenched, and my hands looked like Lady Macbeth’s. I’d squeezed a little too hard and burst a cherry or two or twenty.
Of course I had to eat some—I hadn’t had any breakfast—and the first thing you notice about eating cherries, in additionto the blood red juice all over your hands, is that they don’t actually taste like cherries. Or rather, they don’t taste like anything ‘cherry-flavored’ you’ve ever had. This was definitely a new experience.
Nana Cole was flitting about on her four-pronged cane. One moment she’d be picking cherries herself, next she’d be handing out aprons, offering encouragement, thanking people for coming.
Jasper would go around and take a full apron away from a worker and give them another. Then he’d take the cherries over to a large wooden box and dump them in. I kept picking. The stems kept poking my palm.
It seemed like a lot of fuss over a bunch of cherries. Yeah, I guess it meant more than that to Nana Cole. It wasn’t just about the cherries, or the money. It was like her life. It was the life of her parents. And their parents. And…
And then I felt something—not the pricks in my palm, and not a big something. But something. A connection? This is what my family had done for generations. Farmed this land, pulled a living out of this soil, for a very long time. And it was something I was a part of. I’d never thought about it that way before. Now, I wasn’t kidding myself. If I were able to meet my relatives, I don’t know that I’d even have liked them; nor they me. But that didn’t change the fact that we were part of each other. That had to mean something—didn’t it?
My bag was very nearly full when I heard my grandmother saying my name, “Henry. Henry.”
“What?”
God, she was annoying.
She nodded her head and looked behind me. I turned around and there was Opal getting drenched. It was a total romantic comedy moment. You know, where someone is so in love theydon’t notice the weather. But one look at Opal’s face told me that was not what was happening. She was anything but in love.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ivy and Carl have been arrested.”
“Finally,” I couldn’t help saying.
“I knew it! I knew you had something to do with it.” She stepped forward and slapped me on the chest. Cherries bounced out of my apron.
“Hey. Don’t do that.”
“You idiot. Carl didn’t do it,” she said stridently. “He couldn’t have. He was with me.”
“His alibi was faked. Hessel could have died hours earlier.”
“I don’t believe Carl could kill his stepfather then just come over to hang out with me. That would be heartless. He’s not heartless.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do. Detective Lehmann would have figured it out eventually.”
“No, he wouldn’t have. This is all your fault.”
“Did you know? Did you think—wait, you sent me to get my haircut, you wanted me to think Denny did it.”
“I think Dennydiddo it.”
“Why would Denny do it?”
Nana Cole came over holding a picking apron in one hand. “Hello Opal. Thank you—”
