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“I ordered berries.”
“I don’t have the capacity to plant all of these.”
“What do you meanyoudon’t have the capacity?” she asked. I glared, about to remind her that I didn’t sit on my ass all day, but then she added, “I’m the one planting them.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The deal was that I could plant the berries if I helped you.”
“The deal was thatIwould do it.” I shook my head. Why would she agree to help me and then plant the fields herself? She had a full-time job that kept her tied to her computer, and hadn’t been here since she was a kid. “Do you even know how?”
“Um, mostly? I remember what Bennie did and how he took care of them. As far ashowhe got the fields ready from scratch? That I don’t know.”
“They weren’t entirely from scratch. He used similar ones every year.”
“Right,” she said. “So I’ll need a tiller at the very least. The rental will be astronomical, though.”
“Hang on. I’m not past the fact that you agreed to help me when you thought you would be planting the fields. That’s doubling the work on you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “As opposed to doubling it onyou?”
“Well, I’m getting the benefit.”
“Yeah, by doing the thingIwant to do. I’m not just here to sit in the house all day and watch you have all of the fun.”
“Is playing in dirt fun for you?”
“It was when I was a kid.” She shrugged. “And I have a feeling it would be now.”
She was at least in workout clothes today, but they wereones meant for a gym, not fields. I still saw her as the city girl. The one who was out of place here.
But the more I talked to her, the more I realized that she wasn’t what she looked like.
“You have a tiller,” I said.
“Don’t tell me you’re about to say you can be it.”
“No, there’s an actual tiller in the big barn.” I pointed behind me.
“There’s no way you still have Papa Bennie’s farm equipment after all these years.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “Part of my contract was to keep them in shape in case ...”
In case the farm started doing strawberries again. I wondered if this was the ending Bennie had always wanted. He’d always spoken so highly of Mollie, but I’d thought it had been a memory of a childhood version of her.
“Thankfuck,”she said. “Those rentals were going to be so expensive that I was considering doing it by hand.”
“It’s impossible for you to plant a big enough field by hand in time, especially considering the number of roots you got. Come on, let’s get the tractor out. We can attach the tiller to it.”
We walked to the large red barn. It had become a victim of the elements as most barns did, but the painted structure was in decent shape.
“So, what all is in here?” she asked.
“I stored all of the farming stuff. The tractor, irrigation lines, and the machinery Bennie used. And the snakes.”
“Andwhat?Snakes? Why would you put snakes in here?”
“I didn’t put them anywhere. They show up. Especially as it gets colder.”