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Lucy jumped a mile, pulling out a strawberry plant as she went.
“Crap,” she muttered and tossed the plant to the side. Mom stood beside Ben, who had his eyes narrowed, his arms crossed over his chest and was throwing around a glower to rival his uncle’s.
“Here he is,” Sandra said, her eyes wide, sending Lucy the secret message that perhaps the plan was not starting with success. Mom wore a beautiful silver cuff around her wrist and it took Lucy a second to recognize it as something she’d made for her mother last year. She so rarely wore it. Not bad, she thought, as if the work were someone else’s.
“Have you had something to eat?” Lucy asked.
“I’m not hungry,” Ben muttered, dropping his arms to reveal the video game graphic on the front of his tee-shirt.
Sandra shrugged and mouthed “Good luck” before walking back up the stairs.
“You ready to work?”
“Gardening?” He sneered. His dark hair flopped over his eyes, making him older and younger at the same time. All the sweetness of his youth going sour at the edges. The poor kid.
“You’d rather move rocks? Make license plates?”
He stared at her, her attempt at humor flying right past him.
“You’re going to help me stake the vegetable plants.”
“That’s stupid.”
She blinked at him, stunned by this sudden aggression. “I thought you wanted to be here!”
He pursed his lips and shrugged like some put-upon child pop star, and she wanted to tell him he looked ridiculous. But, instead, she took deep breath.
“I think gardening is better than what your uncle had in mind.”
Ben muttered something under his breath that would no doubt get him in huge trouble with his uncle, so Lucy choose to ignore it, largely because she had no idea how to handle a nine-year-old swearing under his breath at her.
It hadn’t even been ten minutes and this whole thing was already slipping out of her hands.
“Here,” she said. “Let me show you what I want you to do.”
She bent down to pick up the trellis things and the round green wire things she’d found in the back shed that she remembered from when she was a kid.
“These plants are peas and they’re—”
“Those aren’t peas.”
She looked up at him and then down at the plants. “What are you talking about?”
“They’re not peas.”
“How do you know?”
Ben licked his lips, the facade crumbling a little. “My mom...We used to have a garden. Those are going to be flowers.”
“Flowers.” Which meant she’d probably pulled out most of the peas. Great. Total fail. “Well, good thing I have such an expert with me.” She smiled, big and bright, and Ben’s face boarded right back up. Eyes narrowed, lips drawn in a downward curve.
Remember, she told herself, this is about getting him to talk. Not about punishing him. “Was it your mom’s garden?”
He blinked and she held her breath, waiting for the upswell in music, the small leak that would become a geyser of pain.
“I’m not doing this shit,” he muttered and sat down on the ground.
“Ben—” she sighed.
“Tell my uncle, I don’t care.”
Right. Tell Jeremiah that Ben wouldn’t do the first thing she asked him to do? Not a chance.
“Look, I’m not a bad guy—”
He shrugged and she stiffened, offended by that shrug. As if that shrug spoke a whole new demeaning language all its own.
“You’re the one that ruined that car!” she cried and somehow, in some way, she knew she was handing him all the power, but what the hell was she supposed to do? Bodily lift him up and force him to work? Wasn’t that illegal?
“Fine,” she said. “But you’re sitting there. The whole time. And you’re coming back tomorrow.”
He shook his head at her. “You’re crazy.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the picture of mental health, kid.”
He scowled at her and she started to push the trellises into the earth around the flowers, winding the vines up and over the structures.
“That’s a pumpkin,” Ben said.
“Good,” she snapped and kept on working.
8
“You don’t have to come with me,” Jeremiah muttered to Casey as the boy hopped up the steps to the Rocky M’s front door.
“What if Sandra has banana bread again?” Casey asked.
There was no arguing with a five-year-old’s stomach. He’d learned that the hard way. But Jeremiah still wished the kid would just wait in the car with Aaron so he could pick up Ben and conduct his behavior interview with Lucy in relative privacy.
He put his hand up to knock on the heavy front door, but before he made contact the door swung open and Ben poured out of the house like it was on fire.
“Hey,” he cried as the kid stomped past. “What happened?”
“It was great. Can’t wait to come back,” Ben said and then kept on toward the car. Jeremiah shared a stunned look with Casey, who only shrugged as if to say, “What are you going to do?”
