Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [87]
The one immutable rule on Ladybug Farm was that time stopped for no one. There were eggs to be gathered and animals to be fed, rows to be weeded, ponds to be cleaned, beans and squash to be harvested, herbs to be cut, roses to be watered, flower beds to be mulched, bird feeders to be filled, compost to be turned, grass to be mowed. Sometimes a delay of even a day or two could mean the difference between a healthy plant and a dead one, an abundant harvest or no harvest at all. And sure enough, when they returned home from the memorial service, Ida Mae announced that cutworms had taken out half the tomato vines, and potato bugs had infested the potatoes. Everything came to a halt as all able-bodied hands rushed to the garden with cardboard collars for the tomato plants and insecticidal soap for the potatoes.
“You spent more time mulching and less time on that computer,” Ida Mae observed dryly, knocking potato bugs off a leaf and into a tin can with a stick, “and you wouldn’t have to worry about bugs.”
They all knew she was probably right. But there were also one hundred ladybug cookies to be baked, decorated, and packaged, twenty large and one hundred small gift baskets to be packed and wrapped, twenty-five gallons of cherries to be made into cherry wine jam, and twenty champagne glasses to be converted to table decorations—all before the end of the week.
Noah fed and watered the animals, cleaned their pens, mowed the lawn, harvested crops, and attended to his other regular chores without interruption. But for the most part he spent his time alone, either roaming the woods or in the art studio, and the other members of the household gave him his privacy.
“The thing I feel the worst about,” Lindsay said, piping black dots onto the red frosting of a ladybug cookie according to Bridget’s instructions, “is that we’ve been so busy with our own problems we didn’t even notice what was going on with him.”
“That’s not true.” Cici was still pitting cherries. “We knew something was bothering him. We should have tried harder to find out what it was.”
“Having once been an actual teenage boy myself,” Paul said, glancing over the tops of the half-rim glasses he wore for close work, “believe me when I tell you that there is always something bothering them. Trying to stay on top of it every single time is crazy-making.” He hot-glued another perfect cluster of miniature apricot silk roses into the center of an ivory bow and passed it to Lori, who used florist wire to secure it around the stem of a champagne glass.
“Come on, Uncle Paul. I mean, I know it was hard for you, growing up gay and all, but you went to Choate and spent summers on Cape Cod. It’s a little bit different for a kid like him. Not,” she added guiltily “that I’m one to be talking, with all my whining about missing out on Italy. I never spent one day of my whole life without knowing that I had two parents who loved me. And that’s why I don’t think people like us can really understand what it’s like for him.”
Paul smiled at her. “Truer words, princess.”
Bridget took another pan of cookies from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool. “That day we came back from the hospital,” she said, “and he had done all that work sprucing up the place and keeping up with everyone’s chores ... we thought it was because he was trying to get out of the trouble he was in. Now I think it might have just been his way of saying he was grateful, you know, to be here.”
“He is a remarkable young man in so many ways,” Cici said. “I just wish there was something we could do to make things easier for him now.”
The screen door squeaked open, and there stood Noah. “You already have,” he said.
They all turned guiltily and he gave a one-shouldered shrug, and a rueful, fleeting smile. “It’s okay if you talk about me. I just don’t want to ... you know, I’m more the kind of guy who likes to work things out for himself.”
Lindsay straightened up from the tray of cookies. “We know,” she said gently. “But if you ever want to talk, we’re here for you.”
“All of us,” Paul