Breadcrumb #643

HILARY GILFORD

Two women separated in years by the span of a generation work among the raised beds in the small but flourishing garden. Unstaked tomato plants tower and sprawl, while eggplants and banana peppers struggle to grow, fighting for a bit of space and some sun. 

The older woman, the girl’s step-mother-in-law, crouches among the eggplants pretending to look for weeds while her companion chatters casually, hose in hand, moving from one plant to the next, eyes lowered with intention as she waters at the roots as she’s been shown to do.

The hurt feelings from the past have been shelved and the woman reflects, with some humor, the time the young unmarried couple was expected to dinner—the time she baked bread and prepared gluten-free macaroni and cheese with the young woman’s sensitivity in mind. As the hostess, she had refused to reveal the menu ahead of time but knew that her withholding was in protest of the girl’s bad manners for asking. A battle for control. The young woman’s response—a text right before dinner announcing her plans to eat at her friend’s house instead of with them—was galling. And so, the woman was grateful when the boy still came to break bread. The abandoned relish with which he devoured the food she put in front of him flushed her with warm purpose and soothed her pride. 

“The young woman’s response—a text right before dinner announcing her plans to eat at her friend’s house instead of with them—was galling.”

The woman thought about the two decades she’d been in the boy’s life. She had never claimed herself as his mother and she imagined the thin veneer of her position diminished her, even in her own home. There was the dinner when the girl brought her own food and the woman felt goaded into a confrontation that she swallowed. She knew forcing a choice would threaten the hard won place she had in the boy’s life. She knew that if this were a competition, it was one she had already lost. 

There can be winners but only if there is no loser, she told herself when the couple got engaged. The girl is young and you are the grown-up. You do not know her story. If you are fortunate, she will share it with you. She will share it when she feels safe with you. You can afford to be generous. 

Backed into a tender tangle of vines and fruit, the woman finds a genuine weed. She plucks its scrawny roots from the soil appreciating today. 

Once the couple married, she had to remember not to let old judgements—and her fear of abandonment—shut them out. She invited them to spend weekends at the house. Their status as a unit had anchored them and they surprised her with courteous, mature guest behavior. She did not remind them of the time they drank all her beer and excluded her from their late night movie watching. 

When the young bride expressed interest in the garden—saying that she’d never grown anything before—the woman pushed her skepticism aside, welcoming the company. She remembered to be curious without judgement and asked what the girl would like to grow, pick and eat. She would not make a joke about the girl’s eating habits. 

The woman bought the plants that would be placed into the ground and she waited with anticipation of the next visit. She added fresh compost to last year’s soil in the raised bed she designated for the girl. She marveled at the crushed eggshell that remained from last year while everything else had become a dark richness offering possibility. A thought occurs and she adds a trellis. The tendrils of the fledgling plants will seek its support and climb their way to the sky, lugging the weight of leaves and burgeoning fruit.

The weekend visits relax something tightly held in the woman’s heart and because hope is blooming within her, she buys gardening gloves for the girl, choosing pretty ones she would like but would never buy for herself. When the girl does not wear them, the woman doesn’t take offense. She understands; the girl does not need her to buy her things. 

She restrains herself from pulling the weeds in the designated bed and she does not harvest the kirbys even though she is bothered by waiting one more day until the girl arrives—it will be one day too many for the perfect cucumber. She reminds herself, the girl doesn’t eat these vegetables but they are hers to harvest. Her little (or maybe big) victories. 

When the girl shares her story, the woman does not interrupt with stories from her own life. She pretends to pull weeds from around the eggplants as the girl continues to talk, continues to share the troubling details of her life as if she were recounting a grocery list. 

Time stops and the woman knows, this moment is her yield.