Chapter 22: Planting

I opened the envelope, and I did not faint, and I would like some credit for that.

The number had a comma in it a good deal earlier than I had expected.

I put the check back in the envelope.

Then I put the envelope in the freezer under a bag of peas, where I figured it would be safe from me.

It stayed there for two weeks.

Nobody mentioned it, which was a kind of pressure, and Gene took to humming on Friday evenings, which was another.

On the first Saturday in April, Rob's pickup backed up to the fence on Water Street with its tailgate down.

The bed was full of feed sacks and coffee cans and bundles of wet newspaper.

"This is the stuff," Rob said, and climbed out with dirt up to his elbows. "From the barn."

Gene sat on the back porch in the sun with a blanket and a hat, supervising.

"The peonies," said the voice.

Rob lifted a coffee can and showed me a brown knot of roots with red tips just beginning to show.

"He had them dug up the week before the lot sold. Kept them in the dark in the barn, in damp sand, for fourteen months."

"He told you?"

"He didn't tell anybody. I found them." Rob scuffed his boot. "In January I finally went to see the barn. Like the email said."

"Email twelve."

"The light was on," Rob said.

"What light?"

"The barn light. Over the door. It's been on every night since July. He's got it on a timer, Jenna. For me."

He rubbed his nose with his wrist, and I looked politely at a peony.