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Barren |
by Danielle M. LeFevre
"Cecilia?"
"Right here, Mama," said Cecilia, as she plucked a tiny blue flower from the weeds. She pinched the stem of it, forced it between the coarse, greying strands of her bun. In a few more seasons, her hair would be as sea foam white as her mother's. Mama cleared her throat from her folding chair as the pincushion celery seeds tumbled from Cecilia's apron.
"Did I ever tell you how lucky we are to grow celery here?"
"No, mama," lied Cecilia, as she straightened, her back aching. She would have given up collecting celery seeds for her Mama, if there had been anyone else to do it. There wasn't. So, even though Cecilia was old enough to be called a spinster, she plucked, planted and watered the garden of celery. Her toes sank into the soft, damp soil while the salty breeze off the Monterey Bay wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"It doesn't grow everywhere, you know," said Mama. "Just here and down the coast, and all the way over in Florida. We are so lucky."
"We are," replied Cecilia, and this time she didn't have to lie. Smiling at Mama, Cecilia drew the edges of her apron together, forming a pouch in front of herself. It sagged around her hips, heavy with a thousand little seeds. With her left hand, she patted her mother's arm as she passed. The limp lines of the old woman's face suddenly tightened, used as they ought to be, into a smile.
"I'll be right over in the next row, Mama."
"Don't stray too far."
Cecilia had never strayed far, not in all her somnolent years. She bent to check the crop row's marker. Eleven it read, the ink pressed between the rough cracks in the wood. She glanced back once more to Mama, who stared at nothing at all, before stepping down the row of knee-high celery stalks.
Thirty-three steps down the row, she stopped and kneeled with the apron sitting upon her thighs. She released the edges, allowing the seeds to topple over one another. They sounded like the rain. She chased after them with her fingertips, drawing the seeds back into her lap as she poked through the soil, looking for that which was hidden.
She grazed something hard. Brushing aside cold earth and warm seeds, she dug up the tiny, tattered purse. Cecilia gazed down at her treasure, carefully flicking open the rusted clasp. From inside, she withdrew a bracelet whose gold had once gleamed when it flashed about her wrist, like a fish in a spring stream.
Now, brown and green spots marred the metal, except where the rosy hearts had been inlaid. Cecilia stared at it, and tried to remember how it had looked decades ago.
It had fit snugly, shining arrogantly against her knobby wrist. She had loosed it from the box and ribbons, clasping it shut even as her tanned flesh worked its way into the mechanism.
She had grimaced.
""Take it slow," her father had said, as he reached over to inspect the puffy, bloodless wound. "Do you know why I got you this bracelet?"
Cecilia remembered now, but at eleven she had shaken her head. "An early birthday present?" she had smiled, but it soon faded, replacing dimples with high cheekbones. "Because school just started?"
"Because you're a woman now." He had patted her wrist. "Okay?"
She had felt the crush of the dry august heat all around her. She fiddled with the gold and rose bracelet to forget what had happened painfully, unexpectedly, innocuously only four days prior. Cecilia hadn't been sure if her mother would tell him. It felt like a betrayal. Her parents, who could not love each other enough to live together, had conspired against her privacy, her maturity, her womanhood. That day she had taken the bracelet fifty miles south with her, along the mangled highways through the Santa Cruz mountains and the pacific coast, all the way to her mother's farm, where she had passed the last four decades. She had buried it, but never forgotten it, not in all the lonely years in between.
The echo of his question reverberated in her rib cage. "Okay?" she inquired aloud, turning the stained metal over in her hand. Fifty-some years old, and she still could not face the memory. The heat of it burned her cheeks. Then, as though the bracelet had bitten her, she dropped it into the pile of celery seeds.
"Did you spill some?" Mama yelled, her thick vocal cords straining with the effort. They cut off her words, cracking over them.
"Just a few," called Cecilia in return, as she pushed dirt and seeds and tears into her apron. Pinching the corners together, she stood with her collection proudly ballooning in front of herself.
As Cecilia approached, her mother spoke quietly. "Can't drop too many, it's not planting time yet."
"No, not yet," agreed Cecilia as she seated herself beside her mother, the apron full of seeds and a lost treasure cradled on her lap. She would have time enough to bury her womanhood again, to plant it anew. Perhaps next season it would blossom for the first time, green and alive. But, not yet.
Danielle M. LeFevre was raised in silicon valley before moving to the silicone suburban mess of Los Angeles to pursue her education. When not writing she is thinking of other stories to write, and blogs excessively.
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