Green Thumb

by James C. G. Shirk

conclusion

Molly pulled the afghan around her neck and shivered. It was cold in Georgia, colder than it should be in early September. But, then it was colder everywhere, and her sixty-year-old bones felt it more than ever. Remnants of the newspaper she used to start the fireplace lay on the floor at the foot of her chair — one headline proclaimed yet another food-rationing effort was underway. The paper was six months old.

She pulled the afghan tighter, stood, and reached for the metal cup, resting on the hearth. The cup was hot enough for her morning cup of tea, but not too hot to handle. As she settled back in the over-stuffed chair, she thought about the full larder in the root cellar under the rustic log cabin. She’d completely filled it over the short summer, and while there was no meat, there were plenty of canned vegetables and fruits, enough for her, Sam, and Melinda to make it through what promised to be another epic winter.

A sad smile crossed her face — Samantha’s husband, Eric, had died last winter, leaving them alone and without much money. Ironically, the same disease that took Jori, testicular cancer, took Eric as well. It seemed that the men around Molly always suffered the most. Molly’s daughter and granddaughter still lived in their small house a few miles away, and she fully expected them to come by and pick up some food today.

A knock on the door pulled Molly away from her thoughts. “Just a minute Sam,” she called out as she pulled herself out of the chair. A deep, raspy cough climbed from her lungs. She patted her chest — breathing was getting more difficult, a sure sign her lungs were not as efficient as they used to be. Of course, the doctor didn’t know why; his tests showed nothing, but Molly knew what was happening... knew all too well.

When she opened the door, a wide smile, emanating from the midst of a bushy gray-red beard, greeted her. “Hello, Molly.”

“Professor! Oh, my God, what a surprise! Come in, come in.”

Professor Lewis stepped inside, laughing lightly at Molly’s huge response to his appearance on her doorstep. She took his thick coat and scarf, hung them on a wooden pegboard located next to the door, and ushered him to another chair resting in front of the fireplace.

“May I get you a cup of tea?” she asked.

That would be nice,” he said, smiling. “Especially, if it’s your home-grown variety.”

“Always is.” She grinned back at him.

As she fixed his tea, she asked him to recount his travels since last they talked — which was over four years ago. He told her of his work with NATO, only this time with food-relief efforts, mostly in Africa. He told her over a third of Africa’s population had died of starvation, and the middle and far-east countries weren’t much better off.

He finished by telling her that he was retiring, because at sixty-eight years old, he was too tired to fight any longer.

“I feel like a failure,” he said as she presented his tea and sat in the chair opposite his, “and, I don’t understand why. Everything I’ve done has proven futile, but it shouldn’t have. The science tells us that plants should be growing — they do in the labs, but they just won’t germinate on a large scale. That makes no sense... no sense at all. Even indigenous wild plants and trees are evidencing the same phenomena. It’s insane.”

“Aaron, you’ve done everything you could. What’s happening out there,” she waved her hand, “isn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could do to change it.”

He took a long drink, savoring the combination of tea leaves that were Molly’s peculiar but flavorful brew. “Maybe, but sometimes I wonder if things had been different, if I had acted differently...”

“Different how?” she interjected.

He sat the flowered china cup down and turned toward her.

“Molly, I’ve seen hunger so devastating, it’s beyond imagining. Children, little children, shriveled up like ninety-year-old men and yet unable to eat, because their bodies had gone so long without food, they physically couldn’t swallow any longer. It’s enough to break your heart.” His soft, green eyes looked lost.

“I know, I know,” she said as she reached out and patted his trembling hand, “but, like I said, that’s not because you haven’t done everything you could.”

He turned his eyes away.

“What?” she asked.

“Have I?”

“What else could you have done?”

“I often wonder if I had asked you to help us all those years ago, would we have found something that might have changed what’s happened.” He looked back at her. ”And, lately, I’ve been wondering if there might still be time.”

“I see. I guess that’s why you came by today?”

“Only partially... I’ve missed you.”

Molly rose from the chair and moved to the window. She pulled back the drapes and looked down the rutted dirt road. If she had agreed to go with the government people back then, she’d never have had the opportunity to watch Samantha grow and have her own family. But, what price was too large to pay for what any individual wants? What price indeed?

She turned. “Aaron, even if I wanted to, it’s too late to go with you now.”

“Why?”

Molly stared at him, wondering what she would say, but then it came out without her thinking, “I’m dying. I have another few weeks at most... maybe less. Nothing can be done to change that.”

He stared at her for what seemed an eternity, then climbed out of his chair, and gathered her in his arms. His voice shook. “Molly, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Sam and Melinda know everything, so when they show up today, you don’t need to pussyfoot around the issue. I would ask one favor, however. Can you stay with me until... you know? I’d like that very much.”

“Of course, you didn’t even have to ask.”

Molly pulled away from his arms; she didn’t want this to degrade into a soap opera scene. Besides, she had work yet to do. She pushed back the white window curtain. “See that honeysuckle bush by the barn?”

“Yes.”

“Sam and I dug a shallow hole in the ground right next to it, and I need to be stretched out there before I take my last breath. She’s a strong girl, but she’ll likely need some help when the time comes, and I don’t want Melinda to be the one.”

“Oh Jesus, Molly. You can’t be serious... I can’t do that.”

“You will if you want my help.”

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Aaron tended to Molly day and night. She hadn’t felt so “cared for” by anyone since Jori died, and she appreciated his attentiveness even at times when she would have been better off with sleep. He frequently questioned her about her plans at the end, but she refused to discuss it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought if she did, he would just get angry — like everyone else always had.

It was a cold, clear October morning when Molly finally told Aaron and Samantha that it was time.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he said, kneeling next to her bed.

“You can... and will, because it’s the only way to relieve the burden... you carry,” Molly said, pausing frequently as she spoke to allow her tortured lungs to get air.

“Burden? Molly, you’re not making sense,” he said. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

“I know Aaron. You’ve always been there for me... and I know you’ve always loved me.”

He looked away, afraid that the truth of her statement would overwhelm him after keeping it inside for so many years.

“It’s okay... except for my Jori, I’ve never loved another man like... like I do you. When I’m gone, I want you to stay here and watch over Sam and Melinda.”

“Of course. Molly, I--,” he said turning back to her; tears streamed from his eyes and disappeared into his ragged red beard.

“Shhhhhhhhh. No time for that... I need to tell you something now. This is important.” She took a deep breath. “I never asked my plants to grow for me — not since I was a very young... girl. But, they did anyway, and I didn’t understand why until just... these past few years.”

She coughed twice, her lungs churning up a mass of yellow-green phlegm that he dabbed away from her mouth with tissues he constantly kept with him since he moved into the cabin with her.

“Dying,” she said.

“Molly, I know...”

“No... no... not me. The earth is dying,” she said and suddenly bolted upright. She grabbed his shoulder with a strength she shouldn’t possess. “Listen to me,” she gasped, blue eyes shining. “When I was young, I... felt their ‘life’. What I didn’t understand, until recently, is the life I felt was not in the plants but in the earth itself. There’s a force there that no one understands; call it a life-force that permits seeds to germinate, to grow, and to replicate.”

She paused — the effort ebbing away the last bits of her strength. “We’ve always taken that force for granted, because we never suspected it existed, but we’re all plugged into it at birth — it’s part of us — we just don’t realize it. Now it’s almost used up. That’s why crops aren’t growing... don’t you see?”

She slumped back on the bed, exhausted.

“My God, Molly!” Aaron exclaimed. “I always knew you were special, but I had no idea. How could you carry this knowledge, this burden, by yourself all these years?” He began to weep. “I could have helped you... I could have....”

She smiled, weakly. “Do not despair... I’ve something inside... been building there for a long time, tearing me up, trying to get out... and every now and then... even though I didn’t know it — a little did leak through.” Her eyes closed. “We must go.”

Samantha grabbed his arm. “No more time, professor. We need to get Mom outside.”

He reacted to Sam’s words without thinking. Cradling Molly in his arms, he eased out of the bedroom and through the front door. Once they were off the porch, they quickly moved to the edge of the circular hole Molly and Sam had dug by the honeysuckle bush and gently laid Molly on her back with her legs and arms outstretched so she could touch the sides as she’d instructed them. The professor thought she looked like a female version of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

Just as they finished, Molly looked up at him and said in a weak voice, “Thank you for being my friend all these years.”

Her body started to shake violently.

Aaron shot a frantic look at Samantha. “I can’t do this Sam! Look at her, she’s freezing. I’ve got to get her out of there.” He reached to pull her out.

“No!” Molly shouted.

* * *

Molly felt the tingle in her body, not from her elbow this time, but from somewhere deep within her chest. It eddied back and forth, gathering itself, building, tsunami-like, wave upon wave. Her fingertips and toes sizzled as if someone held a firebrand mere inches away from her skin. She pushed her fingers and toes into the soft, red Georgia earth and concentrated.

A lifetime of holding back the energy inside had eaten up so much of her physical reserves, she wasn’t sure if she had the wherewithal to let it out now. But, she had to.

“Now!” she screamed, the words gurgling in her throat as her lungs began to collapse. “Now!”

A deep thud pounded the ground around her, rattling the windows in the cabin. The percussive blast was followed by an ominous quiet, and then, a soft and gentle hum began to resonate from the circle. For a moment, it seemed as if every living thing in the pinewoods stopped and listened as the sound moved inexorably outward — like ripples on a quiet lake — and encircled the globe with its power.

Molly smiled.

As the last of the life-giving energy ebbed from her into the red clay, she whispered out loud the word a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, six-year-old had promised to keep to herself until the end of her days.

“Grow,” she said, and then closed her eyes.

to Challenge 345...