“If you hold what we do in such contempt, why don’t you leave?” I retorted, my annoyance raring to life again.
“I’m here because I want to be.” He pulled up another plant, refusing to look at me.
“It’s hard to tell,” I said, tugging at the roots, ripping them out of the ground.
Bastian was quiet. No more witty comebacks or sarcastic responses. I waited for another volley and was a bit let down when he didn’t say anything else.
We finished pulling up the tomato plants and when we were finished I pulled out a packet of seeds from my pocket that I had saved from last summer’s planting. “Here. Plant these,” I instructed vaguely. I dumped seeds into his hand.
“Uh, okay. Do I need to dig a hole or something?”
I tried not to look as frustrated as I felt. It was hard around Bastian. He poked a lot of my buttons. “Yes, you need to dig a hole.” I handed him a small hand trowel. “Dig only a couple of inches and plant a seed. Then cover it up and water it. Think you got that?”
Bastian gave me a mock salute. “’Aye, aye captain.”
I didn’t use a trowel. I used my hands to dig into the soft, rich dirt. I liked the feel of it between my fingers. Maybe it was left over from my distant childhood when I had spent hours playing in the mud. Maybe it was some small part of me holding onto that girl I once was.
“My mom loves her garden. She spends a lot of time on her flower beds. She tried to get David and me to help her out when we were kids. She gave up pretty quickly when David tried to feed me worms,” Bastian chuckled, patting the dirt over the seeds he planted.
“Is this part of that long, complicated history?” I asked.
Bastian let out a world-weary sigh. “Yes. It was all quite traumatic.”
“Eating worms would be.” I made a face and Bastian was smiling again.
“I didn’t actually eat worms. David tried though. It ended with me throwing mulch in his face and him chasing me around the back yard. Mom got so mad.” Bastian grinned at the memory. “Typical boy stuff. We drove her nuts though. We weren’t allowed to garden with her after that.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “I can imagine.”
“David was always the sporty one. Always full of energy. I was the one happy enough to stay inside painting or drawing. I don’t know what made Mom decide to try gardening with us. We weren’t the make it grow types.”
“David was the energetic one? I can’t see that,” I remarked in surprise.
Bastian’s face clouded over. “Yeah, well that was before he went to Afghanistan.” I could tell by his tone that it was a touchy subject.
“How long was he over there?” I asked. I knew about Afghanistan and what happened there. Pastor often used it as a depiction of how awful the world had become. How degraded and corrupt and morally reprehensible it could be. I couldn’t fathom what horrors David saw there.
“He was enlisted for over three years. He was discharged before Christmas.” Bastian’s jaw tightened.
“Do you mind me asking what happened to him? He seems so—”
“Destroyed? A shell of a person?” Bastian interrupted, words like broken glass.
“I was going to say sad,” I responded softly.
Bastian sighed. “It’s been a roller coaster since he’s been back. Getting bits and pieces about what went on. From what I’ve gleaned from Mom and Dad, there was a mission. Dave was an Army Ranger, you see, so the mission was covert. Super secret. He won’t talk about it and the military won’t give us much information. Only that it went wrong. They ended up walking into a minefield. Most of Dave’s platoon was blown to pieces. David survived. There was some question about his behavior in the field. They say he had mental health issues that led to questionable decision making. It’s a bunch of bullshit. David never had any issues when he was home. Never depressed. No erratic behavior. In fact, he was the logical one. He would think through every single decision before acting. He could take an hour to deliberate on what milk to buy based on fat content and lactose levels.” Bastian shook his head, his brow furrowed. “Basically, that was the Army’s excuse for sending him home and taking away his benefits. He’s been treated like the enemy. It’s completely ruined him.” He was angry. And rightly so. It sounded as if David had been treated horribly.
“I’m so sorry he’s been through that,” I said sincerely.
“Yeah, me too.” Bastian clenched his hands into fists. It looked as if he wanted to hit something.
I reached out to touch him, to comfort him, but then thought better of it. “Sometimes people go through things and it can break them. Or it can make them stronger. We just have to help David find his way through it. And I know he can. There has to be a strength inside him to have survived all that and still get up in the morning.”
Something relaxed in Bastian’s face. Then it was his hand reaching for me. A brief second of physical contact. His palm over mine. Then it was gone. “Thank you, Sara. That’s most hopeful thing I’ve heard since he’s come home.”
His eyes grew soft and I became acutely aware of how close we were. Our knees pressed together. The wind blew my hair, sweeping it across his cheek. I could see the brown flecks in his blue eyes and how long his eyelashes were. Up close, he was sort of spectacular.
It was too much. Too close. I quickly buried my fingers in the soil again.
