Dreaming August

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Dreaming August Page 21

by Terri-Lynne Defino


  “Oh, really? That’s so cool. How’d you figure that out?”

  “I didn’t. Until coming to Connecticut, I never even planted a flower in a pot on my porch. Edgardo and Raul taught me everything I know.”

  “That’s crazy.” Benny tugged at a lock of long, dark hair caught in the shoulder strap of the baby sling. Cursing under her breath, she unslung her infant. “I finally got it to grow past my chin and I want to hack it all off again, but I refuse to do the new-mom-pixie cut thing.”

  Savannah tried not to grimace when Benny set Irene down on the cot in the office. After all the years they’d been friends and co-workers, she still didn’t seem to get that there was a reason she gave all her workers two weeks off after Independence Day. Before last year, when Benny came awake again after too many years grieving, her oblivion was understandable. Now, her oblivion felt a little forced. A lot forced. Savannah wouldn’t rise to the bait. Not even if Benny asked her outright why she became a hermit for two weeks every July.

  “Did Edgardo and Raul get off all right this morning?” Benny sipped, looking at Savannah over the rim of her mug.

  “As far as I know. They left on time, at least. I heard them at around three this morning.”

  “It’s so strange to me, them living apart from their families most of the year.”

  “They must be used to it.” Savannah sipped. “They’ve been working for me for eleven years, and I’m not their first American gig.”

  Edgardo and Raul Gallegos worked tirelessly from March, when the first seeds were planted in the greenhouse, through to harvesting the last of the pumpkins in the fall. They worked six days a week and took only the two weeks in July Savannah insisted upon to go home to their families in Ecuador.

  “We’re lucky to have them.” Benny leaned in, whispering, “They’ve got to be getting old though, don’t you think?”

  “They can’t hear you, Benny.”

  She slouched back in her chair. “You never know who’s listening.”

  “Well, the pictures tacked to the wall in the double-wide never change. Children? Grandchildren? I have no idea. Maybe both.”

  “Grandchildren? You think? But they don’t have a gray hair between them.”

  “No, but their faces are lined like road-maps. Why do men age so much better than women? Not fair. Not fair at all.”

  Savannah relaxed despite herself, as the minutes ticked into a chatty hour. Benny laughed easily, drew the same out in her. Even the throbbing in Savannah’s head eased. Irene stirred, and then she whimpered. Before she could cry, Benny sat on the edge of the cot and nursed her happy again. The back of her tiny blonde head, thick with curls like her daddy’s, made Savannah want to twirl her fingers in the swirl at her crown. Baby hair, like baby breath, was the sweetest of things she could imagine.

  Ginger’s hair had been dark and sleek. Sally’s had been dark and dense. One light-skinned. One darker. And she had loved them so much.

  “Sorry,” she shook herself out of memory. Benny was no longer sitting on the cot but wrapping her baby into the folds and twists of her sling. “I didn’t hear what you just said.”

  “Your headache okay?”

  “My—oh, yes.” Savannah touched her head. “It’s fine.”

  “I was just saying that I’d better get this little biscuit to her grandma and grandpa’s so I can get ready for my big date. It might take a little while to squeeze myself into the dress I bought. Svelte, I have never been. What was I thinking, buying something so tight?”

  “Big date?”

  Benny leaned in and kissed Savannah’s cheek. “You really are still tired,” she said. “It’s Dan and my anniversary, remember? You were my maid of honor.”

  “Oh…oh! Benny, I’m so sorry.” Savannah hugged her tight. “Happy Anniversary, sugar. May this be the first of many happy years to come.”

  “If the rest are only a quarter as happy, I’ll count myself lucky. Thanks, Savvy.”

  Savannah walked Benny outside. It still surprised her to see her friend climb into the hybrid car Dan surprised her with on her birthday, rather than onto the scooter she had always ridden. Strapping the baby into her car-seat, Benny said, “We leave for Bar Harbor tomorrow. You sure you have enough help while I’m gone?”

  “Don’t start that again.” Savannah laughed. “There is almost nothing to do but watch the vegetables grow. Besides, I have enough kids available to fetch and carry for me if I need. Go. Have fun camping. I’m green with envy. Bar Harbor is one of my favorite places on the planet.”

  “Thanks for the recommendation.” Benny tossed the baby wrap into the car and opened her arms to Savannah. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

  “Bring me back some seashells.”

  Waving her friend away until her car was a red speck in the sunshine, Savannah’s mind raced with all there actually was to do on the farm despite her assurances to the contrary. Watering and staking, feeding, weeding, pest-detecting and eradicating. There were secondary crops to start and seedlings to tend. And the lambs…the spring lambs were nearly ready to go, whether to slaughter or to sale. Picking which ones would go where was a task she hated, and one she wouldn’t foist onto someone else, not even the brothers Gallegos, for whom such a task wasn’t so heartrending.

  Savannah Callowell would dive headlong into all these tasks that were better than being idle this time of year, better than having to be with anyone she loved. The high school students who changed by the year were all she could handle.

  Turning to head back to her office, the lists and the planning and the ordering of her present filled her thoughts to capacity. Savannah watched her feet instead of the sky now black and roiling and rumbling thunder, just as she predicted.

 

 

 


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