THREE
Esther and her husband dropped Mud off at the house at four p.m. and drove off in their truck before I could even get to the door. Esther hadn’t talked to me since I admitted to my family that I was part tree and that I thought she might be too. She hadn’t admitted a thing to anyone about whether she grew leaves or not, but refusing to talk to me suggested Esther was hiding something, running away from a difficult truth. It hurt. I figured it always would. But too much water and blood and time had flowed under the bridge for my family to fully trust me. And Esther, if she was a plant-person like me, had too much church conditioning to adjust to being nonhuman.
I opened the door to see Mud trudging up the steps, her dress soaked with sweat and streaked with dirt, her fingernails crusted with black rings, and her bunned-up hair half-fallen down one side. In both hands were damp paper bags with green leaves growing out of the tops. “Let me guess,” I said. “You spent the day in the greenhouse.”
“It was wonderful! They got fourteen kinds of basil growing. Fourteen! And they got thirty kinds of sage. Did you’un know there’s over two hundred kinds of sage?” She reached the porch and started into the house.
“Boots,” I said.
“Oh. Right. Here.” She thrust the paper bags of cuttings at me and dropped to her backside to tug off her boots. Her fingers hit mine and her excitement and contentment and pleasure zinged across the brief connection. The emotions I felt from her touch were all braided together in a jubilant delight that called to me of joy and fecundity and life. “But,” shegrunted as she yanked at a boot, “I need to get the cuttings in water. Is it okay if I pot-plant ’em when they root?”
“Sure. What do you have?” I closed the door on the heat and Mud followed me to the kitchen.
“Basils and sages and stuff, plants to look pretty and to eat too. Raspberry Delight and Blue Steel Russian and Pineapple and Scarlet and Grape. Grape sage gets big, so it has to go in the garden.”
“We can try to overwinter them on the front porch, but they may not survive.” I placed the bags in the kitchen sink near the herbs and veggies I had brought in earlier, and opened the paper. The rich scent of sage leaves spilled out and filled the room. The spicy scent of Thai and lemon basils added to the mélange of fragrances. I separated the plants and lifted down narrow-necked vases and cups with broken handles and other good rooting dishes. I hadn’t cleaned my own veggies beyond hosing them off outside, or dealt with the cuttings I had brought in, so I piled everything together, turned on the water, and went to work.
“We could cover ’em with plastic on cold days and nights,” Mud said, “or...” She stopped. Her color went high, her face bright red, and not with sunburn.
My hands stilled all by themselves and my body hung loose as if I was about to face a fight. “Or what?”
“Or we could build a greenhouse,” she whispered. It was the tone of a faithful supplicant in a cathedral, one full of reverence, hope, and not a little awe.
I went back to separating the plants and snipping off the bases of the stems, removing leaves to create a good spot for roots to start, and putting all the leftover green matter in the compost bucket. Carefully, to keep from getting Mud’s hopes up, I said, “I’ve considered a greenhouse. But this is a hard time to build one for lots of reasons. You’re starting school, we have a court date to be set, we have to consider child care, I have cases at work, we’re learning how to live together. A proper greenhouse is expensive.”
“Them’s all problems we can deal with,” she said earnestly. “If we had a greenhouse, I could practice my growing skills and we could have plants ready for the ground in spring. Wecould have fresh lettuces all winter. And tomatoes starting early. Please, please, please!” Hope and groveling laced all through her words and tone.
I never wanted my sister to grovel or beg me for anything. Women were used to begging in the church. Asking was okay. Begging was for victims. “I’m thinking about it. But it’s costly, Mud.”
“Not if Sam and Daddy build it.”
We both went still and silent. When I could move again, I put three basils into vases. Five sages, then three more basils. I separated my mints and put them into a separate shallow bowl. Softly, I said, “Daddy and Sam still want us in the church.”
“Nope. You grow leaves,” Mud said with satisfaction, “and I might.”
I studied my sister as my fingers continued to separate plants, working by muscle memory. Mud was dirty and tired and full of both angst and animation, what churchwomen might refer to as “being fraught.”
“You think they want to help us but not bring us back into the church because I grow leaves.”
“I think they want to keep an eye on us because they have future generations to look at and their young’uns might grow leaves too. I’m thinking they want to have a safe place for their plant-people to live if necessary. I’m thinking we’uns—sorry—weneed to make hay while the sun shines. I’m thinking we need to get a greenhouse outta their worry.”
“That’s very Machiavellian of you, sister mine.”
“That sounds like a dirty word, but if’n I get a greenhouse outta that, then I’m okay with it.”
I chuckled and placed the last cutting into a canning jar. I washed my veggies and set them aside. Washed my hands. I looked at the water pouring from the sink and sighed. If we got a greenhouse, I would need a separate cistern since my well was wind powered and a slow draw. A separate system was costly. I shut off the water. “I’m okay with family—but only family—providing labor for a greenhouse. But I have to be able to pay for the supplies, materials, equipment, and any nonfamily labor.”
“Deal,” Mud said instantly, digging in a dirty pocket. “Samcame up with a... not a bid, but a materials and costs list.” A grin that might have riven the Red Sea split her face.
I took the folded piece of paper. There were three columns listing prices and materials, based on the size and type of greenhouse. The totals made my heart pound. “I’ll think about it,” I managed. What I was thinking? Even the smallest greenhouse wassooo much money!
Nell said, “I gotta shower. Then I gotta tell you’un about the vampire tree. It’s been retreating for months and last night it let the bulldozer go. And it ain’t ate—hasn’t eaten?—an animal in weeks!”
•••
Mud was determined to get a greenhouse. Family discussions were hard, despite the fact that there were only two of us. Mud had the ability of most churchwomen to finagle, manipulate, and guilt me into too much. I’d been raised the same way myself, but years living with John and Leah, my husband’s senior wife, and years more on my own, had dulled my abilities to wheedle to get my way. It wasn’t an ability that I particularly wanted to encourage in either of us. It was a cult woman’s way—a victim’s way—of negotiating in a household where multiple wives had no control over the purse strings.
I’d been working to get Mud to understand the difference between negotiation and wheedling and was making progress. For that reason—or that’s what I told myself—I let Mud talk to me about the possibility of a greenhouse. “Not one a them little ones neither, but aproper greenhouse,” she insisted, tapping the kitchen table with her fingertip on each of the last four syllables.
