Chapter #19 The Secret Garden

Faith sat silently on a sad lonely log that, severed from its remaining parts, could now only provide a place to rest. She’d made friends with this place and the log had become her conversational companion. Their talks remained internal but genuine. She felt she was living out her favorite childhood book “The Giving Tree”. It appeared the bark had willingly sloughed off so she had a smooth seat. It welcomed her resting there. In this world of rough starts and rougher continuations finding solace in the small things brought the just right bits of pleasure.

Reminiscing about the book in the dappled shade deep in the musty smell of the small spot of forest that had recovered she relived too often the horror that took her voice. The fire tornado was fierce and violent and the result was life-altering beyond all that could be expected, but she had her memories. She remembered her mother’s voice as she read the book to her and her brother Felix. They would beg her to read it again. Sometimes she would but often she’d give it to them and ask them to read it to her. Her brother told her how much she sounded like Momma. She too could hear it and revel in being like her mother. Recalling that is when the tears would start. In that lay her reason to never speak again. She couldn’t bear hearing the voice that reminded her of Momma and felt selfishly protective of the perfect sound it produced. She vowed to keep it hidden away. That gave her something she could control as there wasn’t much else in her grasp.

Wiping tears away with the back of her dirty hand she smeared the dirt on her face without noticing how badly she needed to bathe. Momma would have scolded her for that for sure.

In this outdoor room, she was shaping as her own, she smiled and danced and talked in silence to the trees and the flowers and the dirt. She wished desperately for a ladybug. Her daddy called her his little ladybug. Daddy loved plants and gardening and taught her about them. The things she missed were so many. The things she was trying to make happen to help others were many too.

Faith had a huge heart. She was focused on sustainability that would help everyone find and grow food. She’d secretly been cultivating this small plot with hopes of growing what was needed and then working with Felix to find a plan to distribute it successfully. She would always need him to be her voice. He would support her in this endeavor because he believed in the gravity of the situation.

Her small idea of cultivating a garden had grown quickly. It seemed the earth was hungry. It wanted to be used. It wanted to help. She had found seeds from foraging and in the empty storage rooms of stores still in their packaging. The seeds were viable and the herbs planted from seed or relocated were thriving. There were to be rows of lettuces, carrots, beets, broccoli, and she was watching some asparagus to see how it was going to do. She’d made trellises of branches on which to grow cucumbers and beans. Stumbling across some grapevines growing wild, she’d watched them closely for the formation of the perfect little orbs she cherished at home. Momma loved them too and they’d sit on the porch waiting for Felix to come home from his friends munching them and talking about all sorts of things.

There was one last thing that Faith knew she had to have in place or all this work was for not. The soon to be sprouting seedlings would need water. The giver of all life. She’d struggled with how to handle that but with so much secretive time on her hands she pondered and plotted and planned. On a walk around the ruins, she found a large not too badly damaged plastic garden cistern in the nursery section of the deceased Walmart. She’d seen her dad shopping for them in a well-worn gardening catalog years ago. She didn’t see the point back then but he’d explained it to her. An unsolicited explanation of course. She looked up at the sky.

Thank you, Daddy.

In the late morning of that quiet sunny day, she rolled the large awkward thing as best as she could to the edge of the road. Getting through the tangle of the woods would be the trick. This would hopefully be a one day venture. After keeping it going only to have it roll right back at her from the forest, she took a pause. It pushed back angrily as if to tell her, “Hell no!” Once it landed on its end. She contemplated that and decided she’d do like The Worlds Strongest Men did with tires and lifted it from the end and sort of tossed it. Hallelujah, that worked. It landed on the top of the underbrush and all she had to do then was nudge it along. She lifted under it with her shoulders and it kept moving forward. All of a sudden it plopped off the messy growth and landed in the flat of the garden opening. Panting and sweating she decided she’d come back the next day to finish the setup.

When she got there to finish getting it set up she realized how damn lucky she was. Inside under the mesh top was the hose that it came with. All she had to do was attach that to the bottom and snap the valve closed to keep the rain in. Over the next few weeks, while she worked the soil and planned where she’d plant what, she watched it gather water from the rain.

Once all the planting was done she tried the valve and hose and the water flowed out easily. She’d failed to grab a receptacle for the water dispersion so she just started by aiming the hose so it ran between the rows. The ground had been watered by the rain anyway.

The best part about this thriving garden was that no one knew about it yet. Things weren’t growing too quickly so nothing would go to waste before she had Felix onboard.

****

Felix was wandering down the sun-drenched dirt road and, she hoped, looking for her. She hid behind a tree and watched his approach. As he passed by she jumped out and waved at him. She thought to scare him. Then started to giggle to herself.

You can’t scare someone when you don’t yell out dummy!

Changing her plan she ran up behind him and bumped his knee with hers so he lost his footing. He wheeled around ready to level someone. Then he saw it was her and she was laughing for the first time in so long. Seeing her eyes scrunched up and her teeth unprotected by her tight-lipped mouth made him happy beyond measure.

She implored him to follow her. She took his hand and pulled him along. They skipped and trotted through deep underbrush and in and around trees and over fallen ones that wished for new jobs.

They broke through into a sunny clearing of sudden order and purpose. Order and purpose that his little sister Faith had created in this world of chaos. He stopped quickly, stunned. He couldn’t stop looking. He strove to take it all in. He realized his hands hung limply at his side useless to be important in this moment of pure beauty and joy.

She has done this? She has made this beautiful option to end hunger and worry about food supplies?!

He followed her as she led him down each row. The rows were marked with the empty seed packets on popsicle sticks. Taking a mental inventory, Felix made mental notes of what was there and what quantities they were looking at if everything grew to fruition. Her excitement was palpable. It was contagious.

“Faith-y this is astonishing. I don’t know how you kept it to yourself. Is this something you want people to make so they can have food to eat?” he asked. "This is really a cool idea. You blew me away. I never knew until now just how smart my little sister was!”

He watched her face. He waited for a reply. She looked up from her rows of fledglings and into his eyes, eyes she’d known all her waking days. She felt his approval. She basked in it. Remaining silent out of fear to hear her own voice she nodded in approval.