Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [49]
“Imagine that,” Lusa said, sounding sarcastic, though she was actually a little astonished. She’d never thought through these basic lessons before. Tobacco’s value, largely, lay in the fact that it kept forever and traveled well.
They stood silent for a while, all three of them staring out into the yard. The rain fell on the big leaves of the catalpa tree, popping them down like the keys on a typewriter.
Lusa said, “There’s got to be something else I can make decent money on. The barn’s got to have a new roof this year.”
Herb smirked. “Mary-jay-wanna. I hear that brings in about the same price per acre as tomatoes, and the market’s solid.”
“I see,” Lusa said. “You’re making fun of me. Well, I appreciate your offer to set this weekend, but I’d like to think about the tobacco. Can you still get the sets from Jackie if I let you know tomorrow or the next day?”
“I expect so. Jackie’s got that hydroponic setup. It didn’t work out too good last year, but this year he’s done growed more’n he knows what to do with.”
“Well, good. I’ll let you know, then, before Saturday. I’ll decide what to do.”
“If it stops raining,” Herb said, lest Lusa think she was in charge.
“Right. And if it doesn’t, then we’re all sunk together, right? I’ll make the same nothing off the tobacco I didn’t grow as you will off the crop you tried to get put in. And think of the time and money I’ll save!”
Herb stared at her. Big Rickie smiled out toward the garage. “That’s a smart lady, Herb,” he said. “I believe she’s got the right attitude for farming.”
“Well,” Lusa said, slapping her hands together. “I’ve got a gallon of cherries in there that are going to rot if I don’t get them canned today. So I’ll call you Friday.”
Herb leaned out toward the edge of the porch, looking up the mountainside toward the orchard. She was controlling her breathing, counting the seconds until these two got into the truck and lit their cigarettes and drove away and she could sob on the porch swing. Standing up to them took almost more guts than she had.
“I’m surprised you got cherry one off them trees this year,” Herb pronounced. “As many durn jaybirds as we’ve had. Last spring I come over here and shot the birds all out of there for Cole, but I never got around to it this year. So you got you enough for a pie or two anyways, did you?”
Lusa managed to grimace a smile, wide-eyed and fierce. “Miracles happen, Herb.”
That would be Jewel at the door, Lusa thought. Jewel thumping her umbrella out in the front hallway (they’d always come in without knocking, all of them, even when Lusa and Cole were newlyweds stealing sex in the afternoons), Jewel’s tired voice telling the kids to wipe their feet and hang up their raincoats on the pegs. Then they poured through the kitchen doorway, the older child carrying a box of canning jars on his head, balancing it with both hands. Lusa had called Jewel when she ran out of canning jars.
“Come on in,” she said. “You can set the box right down there on the counter.”
“Lord, call the police,” Jewel cried. “They’s been a murder in here!”
Lusa laughed. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?” Her apron and the countertops were smeared garishly with the blood of hundreds of cherries. The hand-cranked pitter was clamped to the counter, a mass of dark pits glistening in the bucket underneath like something from a slaughterhouse. She’d been relieved when Jewel offered over the phone to come up and help her finish the canning. Lusa could recognize objectively, without really feeling it, that she needed company or she’d go crazy.
Yet here was her sister-in-law with her hand to her mouth already, mortified by her slip, a joke about death. Lusa had hoped for a sturdier kind of company than this.
“It’s OK, Jewel. I know Cole’s dead.”
“Well, I didn’t…stupid me. Didn’t think.” She looked anguished.
Lusa shrugged. “It’s not like you’re going to remind me of something I’ve forgotten