“What?”
I gesture wildly between the churned earth and the machine.
“That.”
He keeps moving the tiller.
“It breaks up the soil.”
“I can see that.”
I drop the shovel.
“You had that the whole time?”
“Yes.”
I gesture wildly between the tiller and the small patch of dirt I’ve been personally battling like a pioneer woman with a grudge.
“That was an option?”
“Yes.”
“And you just—what—watched me dig like that anyway? You just stood there while I fought for my life with a shovel?”
“You weren’t fighting.”
I cross my arms.
“I absolutely was.”
He cuts the engine. The sudden silence feels just as dramatic. He looks at the loosened soil. Then at me.
“You needed to feel what you were working with first.”
I stare at him.
“That is not a real answer.”
“It is.”
I step toward him, pointing at the machine.
“That thing just did in thirty seconds what I’ve been trying to do for the last—”
I check my phone.
“—forty-eight minutes of personal growth.”
His mouth pulls slightly to one side.
“You still have to dig.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Why?”
