Where the Watermelons Grow: Chapters 7–11

After we’d finished our shift at the farm stand that morning, Arden and I escaped down to our playhouse. We’d built it last summer, right by where the curve of Hummingbird Bay met the edge of the Hawthorne farm, and both our daddies hated it because we’d made it ourselves out of old plywood we scavenged from the supplies my daddy used to build our chicken coop last year.

We were painting the walls with paints and brushes we’d snuck out of Arden’s mama’s craft room, trying to make it look as much like a real house as a rickety plywood box nailed together by two eleven-year-olds can.

Arden yelled, looking up from her painting to see her brother wading into the bay so far his shorts got wet.

Arden and I went swimming in there without any grown-ups all the time, dunking each other under the brackish water or trying to swim all the way out to the point where the bay opened up into the Albemarle Sound, but nobody else but us knew about that.

Eli stuck out his tongue at us, but he obeyed, trudging back to the shore with his skinny white legs dripping water.

“I can’t believe summer's nearly half over.” Arden sounded wistful.

Last year, her mama had let her spend a whole school year studying the changes in the water plants by the bay’s edge and called it botany, while my science class had to dissect frogs.

Last year, her mama had let her spend a whole school year studying the changes in the water plants by the bay’s edge and called it botany, while my science class had to dissect frogs.

“Mom’s already planning a whole unit on aeronautics. We’re going to take a day trip to Kitty Hawk and everything. Mom says maybe if the weather’s nice we’ll rent a condo on the beach for a few days, maybe drive up to Corolla and see the wild horses.”

They landed on a poem called “Book”:
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry—

From the bedroom, Mylie’s screaming ratcheted up another few degrees.

My stomach roiled and rocked with a sick kind of guilt—if I’d just come in sooner, if I hadn’t snuck that little blue book outside and dawdled while I was doing my chores, could I have stopped things before they got this bad?

“Shh,” I whispered, bouncing up and down on my heels a little like Mama used to do when Mylie was colicky as a newborn.

“It’s just like after you were born, Della,” he’d said. “Having a baby is hard on any woman, and even harder on somebody with your mama’s illness. We just have to hold on till things regulate in her body, honey. Your mama’s had this sickness a long time, and you and me and her, we’ve been through a lot together. We can get through this, too. It’s just going to take a little patience.”

I took a deep breath, trying to fill up every inch of my lungs, feeling the humidity hanging in the air like it wanted to rain so bad but couldn’t.

Mama managed to get through the rest of Saturday—and the church service the next day—without saying anything too outlandish, even if she did seem quieter than normal, her face twisting itself into pinched-looking grimaces every now and again.

We were all on our way out to the car after church when I caught sight of Miss Tabitha leaving the sanctuary.

I thought of another Bee Story, this one about Miss Tabitha herself: how a few years back Wanda Ann Rosemond’s fiancé had jilted her right at the altar in this very church, and it had broke Wanda Ann’s heart into so many pieces that she couldn’t stop crying no matter how hard she tried.

I thought of another Bee Story, this one about Miss Tabitha herself: how a few years back Wanda Ann Rosemond’s fiancé had jilted her right at the altar in this very church, and it had broke Wanda Ann’s heart into so many pieces that she couldn’t stop crying no matter how hard she tried.

I turned the heat up under the pan halfway, just like Mama always did, and put a dollop of butter inside it.

Good thing the crossword was keeping her pretty busy.
“There,” said Mama a minute later, after I’d finished fishing out the eggshells and grabbed a rubber spatula to scramble up the eggs. “I got every single one. Ha! Your mama’s vocabulary is as extensive as it is erudite, Della.”

I popped four slices of bread into the toaster and started cutting up the peaches, pulling the little paring knife around the peach pits slowly and carefully, just like Mama had shown me when I was younger.

“Wed!” she shouted, pointing at the red jam smeared across her tray. “Woooooah.” She cackled and swooped her fat white fingers through the jam like it was finger paint.

“I’m still worried about my watermelons,” Daddy told Mama as he dished eggs onto his plate. “Ben thinks maybe it’s anthracnose fungus. Gave me some kind of oil to try, but if it doesn’t work, I might have to give up on keeping them organic this year and order some of the stuff my daddy always used. I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong to try to make so many changes at once after my daddy had to leave last year, Suzanne. We just can’t afford to lose this batch of melons right now.”

Way back when he’d gone to college he’d studied agriculture science.

He and Grandpa had always had different ideas about how to run things on the farm—Grandpa wanted to do it the way his daddy and his granddaddy had done it, while Daddy wanted to try some of the things he’d learned in college, things Grandpa scoffed at and called ridiculous. Like getting rid of all the chemicals Grandpa had used, and putting the big spiral tiller in the shed and investing in other equipment Daddy said wouldn’t hurt the soil as much.

He and Grandpa had always had different ideas about how to run things on the farm—Grandpa wanted to do it the way his daddy and his granddaddy had done it, while Daddy wanted to try some of the things he’d learned in college, things Grandpa scoffed at and called ridiculous. Like getting rid of all the chemicals Grandpa had used, and putting the big spiral tiller in the shed and investing in other equipment Daddy said wouldn’t hurt the soil as much.

Thomas laughed incredulously. “You know I’m a city boy, Mr. Kelly. I wouldn’t know a tractor if it bit me. Didn’t even need a riding mower at my old place.”

We could all use a good grandma hug about now, I reckoned.

There wasn’t anything more they could do now, except maybe pester Mama about going to those doctor’s visits she kept skipping, and stress her out even more so she got worse faster.