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“Lissie Lissie bo bissie, fi fie fo fissie,” Susan said whenever she saw me coming, her voice bubbling up from some deep well of joy. “Banana-nana, bo bissie. Lissie!” I thought this was the coolest thing.

“Say Heidi, say Heidi,” I begged.

“Heidi Heidi do didi, fi fie fo fidi, banana-nana do didi. Heidi,” Susan unwittingly chimed, and I collapsed in laughter because we called the cloth diapers—which Heidi hated to wear as much as I had—didis.

“Heidi-didi,” I sang, “Heidi didi, diaper breath,” which of course made her pout.

Kent, the young gymnast from Springfield College, left off tending the farm stand, and David leaned his pick against the stump he was extracting, pulling back his long ponytail. Sweat shone on their tan backs as they came to the farmhouse like bees to a flower, the stone patio edged by the full bloom of daylilies panting their tongues in the dappled light under the ash tree.

Papa followed, carrying something as he did, never making a trip across the farm without accomplishing a task at the same time. He was so skinny that summer, his cut-off shorts bunched around his waist with an old belt to keep them from falling down. His eyes seemed bluer than ever, almost too blue, popping from his lean face. Sometimes he moved so quickly you couldn’t quite get a fix on him, the backward toss of his short silver hair lending the impression of constant motion. He talked fast like that, too, about all the things that needed to get done. There was less time lately for shoulder rides, and what remained was shared with Heidi.

“Papa, Papa,” Heidi called, running to him, screaming in delight as he lifted her up in his arms, her sparkle of blue eyes meeting his. We all loved him like that.

“Double piggyback,” I begged him, and he acquiesced because it was lunchtime, getting down on all fours so I could climb onto his back and Heidi onto mine.

“Giddyup, Papa,” we cheered around the yard, until he tumbled us off to get food.

Mama brought out the soup pot with two hands, elbows up, skin dewy from the steam, the air filling with the smell of sautéed onions, herbs, and vegetables. “Watch out, watch out, hot!” Next came a large wooden bowl of salad dressed with olive oil, vinegar, and sesame seeds, followed by a basket of raw carrots scrubbed bright orange.

Kent smiled at Mama with his carefree grin as she tucked back wisps of hair framing her face. He saw Mama as the beautiful earth mother who fed and sustained him with her delicious lunches. She smiled back at Kent with a shrug and her shy laugh, though it was not, I knew, her private in-the-house laugh, with its ascending throaty oh, oh, ohs and occasional snort when she really got going. While she liked and appreciated the apprentices, the commotion of summer and the demands of so many young people were sometimes too much for her. The more she fed everyone else, the less she fed herself.

After washing our hands in a bucket of water from the well, we served ourselves into our personal wooden bowls. As they ate, the apprentices talked with Papa, who rallied the helpers by inspiring them with the mysteries of the garden and sharing his books on soil and plant health. In Papa’s telling, the soil held within it the secrets of the universe. One topic of discussion that summer was why plants grew so much better in soil recently turned over from the forest. Papa called it the X-factor, and everyone was always trying to solve the mystery. Even after he left, Kent sent Papa materials that helped to explain the phenomenon of what they eventually learned was the release of nitrogen stored in the forest floor.

Mama sat apart at the shadier end of the patio, sipping her soup, her navy-patterned bandanna pulled low over her forehead.

“Mama,” I said, planting my naked bum next to her on the cool stone of the ledge. “Can we go pick berries?”

“Yup, sure, um-hum,” she said in her checked-out voice, the profile of her face outlined by flickerings of light in the trees.

“You come,” I begged, tugging her arm with my fingers.