Ripe
by Elizabeth M. Dalton
Molly slaps at a bug on her ankle and I whip open the brown paper bag in my hand. Before us lies a seemingly endless row of tomato vines waiting to catch at our hands and clothes while bugs whirl overhead. We will be here all morning.
Sweat beads up beneath the grubby old baseball cap my mother made me wear, and the feel of grease in the creases beside the flanges of my nostrils alerts me that another breakout is on the way. Molly tucks her hair up under her cap and we argue about who will have to walk all the way to the other end of the row so we can meet up in the middle. She loses but tells me she’s taking the salt shaker with her. I watch her shuffle through the grass to the other end before I step into the garden. She dallies for a second to tuck another strand of hair beneath the cap, her shoulder blades poking out of her back. She’s thin like a water bird, all neck and legs and wings.
At first the cracked crust of topsoil is a relief to my wet feet, but the uneven soil cuts into my soles so that it is miserable to stand or crouch in any one place for long. So, moving from foot to foot, I contemplate the bushy plants and the green tomato worms hidden within them, their heads curled serpent-like over a leaf or stalk. I shudder, close my eyes, and reach.
Tomatoes are tricky. They may be red on one side and green on the other, so I look before I pull. It would be easy to simply clean off the plants, for every tomato we leave on the vine is a tomato I will have to pick on another muggy morning. Some are overripe and rotten where they have fallen to the ground. The black cankers look like running sores on the bottoms of the fruit. I toss these into the tree line, listening for the crash of the tomatoes among the leaves and branches.
Sweat beads up beneath the grubby old baseball cap my mother made me wear, and the feel of grease in the creases beside the flanges of my nostrils alerts me that another breakout is on the way. Molly tucks her hair up under her cap and we argue about who will have to walk all the way to the other end of the row so we can meet up in the middle. She loses but tells me she’s taking the salt shaker with her. I watch her shuffle through the grass to the other end before I step into the garden. She dallies for a second to tuck another strand of hair beneath the cap, her shoulder blades poking out of her back. She’s thin like a water bird, all neck and legs and wings.
At first the cracked crust of topsoil is a relief to my wet feet, but the uneven soil cuts into my soles so that it is miserable to stand or crouch in any one place for long. So, moving from foot to foot, I contemplate the bushy plants and the green tomato worms hidden within them, their heads curled serpent-like over a leaf or stalk. I shudder, close my eyes, and reach.
Tomatoes are tricky. They may be red on one side and green on the other, so I look before I pull. It would be easy to simply clean off the plants, for every tomato we leave on the vine is a tomato I will have to pick on another muggy morning. Some are overripe and rotten where they have fallen to the ground. The black cankers look like running sores on the bottoms of the fruit. I toss these into the tree line, listening for the crash of the tomatoes among the leaves and branches.
“Tomatoes are tricky. They may be red on one side and green on the other, so I look before I pull." |
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Once my sack is half full I stand and stretch and rub forearms irritated from contact with the scratchy tomato vines and leaves. The spicy odor of tomatoes wafts from my palms. I thrash around, trying to swat away the sweat bees attracted to the perspiration in the hollow between my breasts. Even the backs of my knees are damp. Near the opposite end of the row, Molly crouches, head bent over her work. She looks up and flings a tomato overhand toward the tree line, her long fingers outspread in the air beside her head as she waits for the fruit to fall. Beyond the tree line, we hear the distant hum of farm equipment moving through the fields.
I lift my cap for a second, then squint toward the field, the road, the house. The sun is a blurry disc in a white sky this morning and the apple tree slouches beneath its weight of fruit and bees. One more week and then I’m in high school. I’m ready for the end of the hot summer, though I wish I were taller and thinner, and less bookish.
Molly will be a seventh grade cheerleader this year. She and her girlfriends trade boyfriends and overnights at each others’ houses. Which boy she calls a boyfriend right now, I don’t know. Which friend is in and which is out is a mystery to me. All of the sudden, there are whole parts of her life I know almost nothing about. She bends, elastic in the heat, her long back and arms stretching toward the tomato plants.
She hums a little, and is not angry—like I am—about the injustice of this chore. Jason, our little brother, is inside where it’s cool. Molly moves slower than I do, dropping in one tomato for my two. If she’d work as quickly as I do, we’d be done sooner and out of this heat, but it’s always this way. On Saturday mornings, she hums and drifts through the house, distractedly flicking the dust rag over the tabletops or vacuuming the same two feet of carpet over and over again with a vague smile on her face. There is no hurry in her, while I am all hurry, trying to get as much in as possible before time is up.
I go back at it, riffling through the cool undersides of the prickling leaves, first feeling the fruit, peering at it, and then pulling with a quick twist. An occasional breeze wafts through the corn and across my greasy forehead. About a third of the way through the row, my bag bulges. Molly has moved perhaps a few feet from her starting place, and her bag might be half full. Move it, I tell her. She stops humming long enough to tell me to shut up.
We hear the screen door slam and Mom soon appears with a few more folded grocery bags. She shakes one open and drops the rest at the garden’s edge. Then, she wades in to check our progress. Before she takes three steps, she finds two tomatoes I missed. Look under the leaves, she says, placing the tomatoes in the fresh bag. Molly smirks. I do, I tell my mother. She bends over the vines, feeling green and yellow fruits, then pulls the leaves back to show another cluster I have missed. Still, I’ve done more than Molly, I tell her.
Here you go, she says, handing me the fresh sack. Red tomatoes roll across the bottom. She takes my full bag and carries it to the garden’s edge, then walks to get Molly’s. She does not say a word about Molly’s half-full bag, perhaps because Molly is smiling at her as she takes the empty sack from Mom’s hand. I, on the other hand, vow I will never keep a garden when I have my own home. I will never make my children work in this kind of heat when tomatoes can be purchased for a few cents a can from a grocery store.
Carrying one bag on each hip, Mom heads back to the house where water is on the boil and sterilized jars stand ready for the fruit. Molly and I watch. I’m hungry, she says. She walks to her edge of the garden and picks up the salt shaker. Perspiration sparkles on her neck and shoulders. Come on, I tell her. Let’s finish this. She doesn’t listen, so I shrug, select two tomatoes from the sack, and follow her; I don’t want to be stuck doing even more of the work than usual. We collapse, cross-legged, in the warm grass. Molly’s hair is bright where the sun touches it and her blue eyes gaze out from behind the sun-pinked hills of her cheeks as she laughs and points at our dumb cat hiding in the cornstalks. She slaps a mosquito on the knob of her shoulder and grimaces as she wipes away the corpse.
The tomatoes are sharp-smelling and warm in the palms of our hands. The fruit is so ripe it feels almost liquid beneath the skin. I rub grains of soil off on my shorts and take a bite. As soon as my teeth puncture the skin my mouth is filled with juice and pulp. Molly slurps at hers and upends the salt shaker over the top. She takes another bite and juice runs from the corners of her mouth. She closes her eyes. I take the salt shaker and do the same.
We eat until we are full of tomato flesh and salt. I throw off my cap and lie back in the grass. Cicadas set up an electric rattle in the trees. The nearby whir of a honeybee alerts us to her presence. Molly tells me she’s not ready for school to start. I am, I say, and my eyes drift closed again. She talks about the boy she likes, her voice a lazy hum that blends with the late summer sounds around us. I think about boys, too, and how they are waiting at the edge of autumn. But here there is nothing but the grass, the growing garden, my sister, and the bee. Fingertips of a hot breeze trace our skin and scalps. The summer heat warms me through until I feel heavy, slow, and ripe. The insides of my eyelids glow red.
I lift my cap for a second, then squint toward the field, the road, the house. The sun is a blurry disc in a white sky this morning and the apple tree slouches beneath its weight of fruit and bees. One more week and then I’m in high school. I’m ready for the end of the hot summer, though I wish I were taller and thinner, and less bookish.
Molly will be a seventh grade cheerleader this year. She and her girlfriends trade boyfriends and overnights at each others’ houses. Which boy she calls a boyfriend right now, I don’t know. Which friend is in and which is out is a mystery to me. All of the sudden, there are whole parts of her life I know almost nothing about. She bends, elastic in the heat, her long back and arms stretching toward the tomato plants.
She hums a little, and is not angry—like I am—about the injustice of this chore. Jason, our little brother, is inside where it’s cool. Molly moves slower than I do, dropping in one tomato for my two. If she’d work as quickly as I do, we’d be done sooner and out of this heat, but it’s always this way. On Saturday mornings, she hums and drifts through the house, distractedly flicking the dust rag over the tabletops or vacuuming the same two feet of carpet over and over again with a vague smile on her face. There is no hurry in her, while I am all hurry, trying to get as much in as possible before time is up.
I go back at it, riffling through the cool undersides of the prickling leaves, first feeling the fruit, peering at it, and then pulling with a quick twist. An occasional breeze wafts through the corn and across my greasy forehead. About a third of the way through the row, my bag bulges. Molly has moved perhaps a few feet from her starting place, and her bag might be half full. Move it, I tell her. She stops humming long enough to tell me to shut up.
We hear the screen door slam and Mom soon appears with a few more folded grocery bags. She shakes one open and drops the rest at the garden’s edge. Then, she wades in to check our progress. Before she takes three steps, she finds two tomatoes I missed. Look under the leaves, she says, placing the tomatoes in the fresh bag. Molly smirks. I do, I tell my mother. She bends over the vines, feeling green and yellow fruits, then pulls the leaves back to show another cluster I have missed. Still, I’ve done more than Molly, I tell her.
Here you go, she says, handing me the fresh sack. Red tomatoes roll across the bottom. She takes my full bag and carries it to the garden’s edge, then walks to get Molly’s. She does not say a word about Molly’s half-full bag, perhaps because Molly is smiling at her as she takes the empty sack from Mom’s hand. I, on the other hand, vow I will never keep a garden when I have my own home. I will never make my children work in this kind of heat when tomatoes can be purchased for a few cents a can from a grocery store.
Carrying one bag on each hip, Mom heads back to the house where water is on the boil and sterilized jars stand ready for the fruit. Molly and I watch. I’m hungry, she says. She walks to her edge of the garden and picks up the salt shaker. Perspiration sparkles on her neck and shoulders. Come on, I tell her. Let’s finish this. She doesn’t listen, so I shrug, select two tomatoes from the sack, and follow her; I don’t want to be stuck doing even more of the work than usual. We collapse, cross-legged, in the warm grass. Molly’s hair is bright where the sun touches it and her blue eyes gaze out from behind the sun-pinked hills of her cheeks as she laughs and points at our dumb cat hiding in the cornstalks. She slaps a mosquito on the knob of her shoulder and grimaces as she wipes away the corpse.
The tomatoes are sharp-smelling and warm in the palms of our hands. The fruit is so ripe it feels almost liquid beneath the skin. I rub grains of soil off on my shorts and take a bite. As soon as my teeth puncture the skin my mouth is filled with juice and pulp. Molly slurps at hers and upends the salt shaker over the top. She takes another bite and juice runs from the corners of her mouth. She closes her eyes. I take the salt shaker and do the same.
We eat until we are full of tomato flesh and salt. I throw off my cap and lie back in the grass. Cicadas set up an electric rattle in the trees. The nearby whir of a honeybee alerts us to her presence. Molly tells me she’s not ready for school to start. I am, I say, and my eyes drift closed again. She talks about the boy she likes, her voice a lazy hum that blends with the late summer sounds around us. I think about boys, too, and how they are waiting at the edge of autumn. But here there is nothing but the grass, the growing garden, my sister, and the bee. Fingertips of a hot breeze trace our skin and scalps. The summer heat warms me through until I feel heavy, slow, and ripe. The insides of my eyelids glow red.
~
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The aisle was as short as the country church was small. Molly took her place at the end of it and the elderly organist shifted from a diffident Pachelbel to a key-pounding Wagner. Autumn sunlight backlit Molly’s veil but I could still see her face beneath the tulle. The high lace collar on her dress covered the surgery scar in her throat. The thyroid was gone and with it, we believed, the possibility of cancer. We were more concerned about the dragon tattoo on her leg, a relic from her past. At some crazy party, she’d extended her leg to a tattoo artist, who took full advantage of her long calf. The large tattoo horrified our parents and fascinated me. What had it felt like? Why a dragon? When our mother complained, as she did every time she caught a glimpse of it, or when I asked, Molly shrugged and smiled. The voluminous wedding dress covered all but the toes of Molly’s pumps, but our mother wanted the thing to disappear. She purchased pancake scar concealer for both the surgery scar and the tattoo, but a trial run proved the stuff smeared; it wouldn’t survive the effort to pull on a pair of stockings.
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"Autumn sunlight backlit Molly’s veil but I could still see her face beneath the tulle. The high lace collar on her dress covered the surgery scar in her throat. The thyroid was gone and with it, we believed, the possibility of cancer." |
Molly stepped toward the altar with a dragon beneath her skirts. Hair grazed collars as heads turned and slacks slithered over knees as they extended and guests stood. I stood at the top of the aisle with the other attendants and wept. At 27, my sister was a woman, nothing like the silly girls I’d seen at so many weddings during the past ten years or so. She had been in no hurry for marriage or children. She meandered through her 20s, working odd jobs, driving ludicrous little hatchbacks, and living a life she concealed from the rest of her family. She strolled down the aisle, her smile brilliant.
I don’t remember much of my first wedding, certainly not the words I spoke. A lot happened during those first few years of adulthood. By the time I was 24 years old, I had two marriages, one divorce, two children, and a college degree to my name. What I do recall from that first wedding is trying to keep my lashes from tangling in the veil while my fiancé swayed beside me like a tree about to be felled. We gripped each other’s hands as the minister insisted on sharing with our unsuspecting guests that I was pregnant. Two years were all it took to topple that marriage. My second try at 24 took root, the one where I spoke my vows with at least some understanding of their meaning and power. Molly took her time, listening carefully, repeating clearly, her face as confident and still as a Botticelli Madonna’s. She and Jim held hands and watched each other’s faces. I swiped at my eyes and nose, my green taffeta dress rustling like a paper bag.
Glasses clinked and the aunties on my side of the family settled in for ornery talk. My husband, John, left his food to videotape various parts of the reception: the cake cutting, the best man’s toast, the bouquet and garter toss. My five-year-old daughter, Sarah, danced herself to dizziness and refused to eat anything that wasn’t sugar-coated. Various family members had handed her cookies on the sly and slipped her several cans of soda, and she was careering toward a tantrum when my motherin-law sat her down with a plate of food. John was who knows where. My son, Daniel, had eaten and wanted to know if he could have more. Yes. I went with him to the buffet table and dropped a few things on my plate while Daniel filled his again. I set my plate down at the half-empty table set aside for the wedding party when I heard the fussing begin. I scurried over to Sarah with my pack of hushes, threats, and bribes. There was some haggling and some very slow liftings of the fork while I watched in the gloom.
Finally, I turned my daughter loose again. My plate of food would be cold, but I was past eating anyhow. Mirrors flashed and laughter burst from the ladies’ room when I opened the door. There stood Molly surrounded by her hippie-chick girlfriends who touched her veil and dress, her hair and face, and told her she was beautiful. She was flushed and a little out of breath, fanning herself with one hand while the other fluttered the wide skirt of her dress up and down, revealing and hiding the dragon by turns. Her teeth gleamed as her laugh, as red as her hair, filled the room. I was a green sliver in the background as I dried my hands. I smiled in her direction, envious of her friends, and hurried back to my children.
Glasses clinked and the aunties on my side of the family settled in for ornery talk. My husband, John, left his food to videotape various parts of the reception: the cake cutting, the best man’s toast, the bouquet and garter toss. My five-year-old daughter, Sarah, danced herself to dizziness and refused to eat anything that wasn’t sugar-coated. Various family members had handed her cookies on the sly and slipped her several cans of soda, and she was careering toward a tantrum when my motherin-law sat her down with a plate of food. John was who knows where. My son, Daniel, had eaten and wanted to know if he could have more. Yes. I went with him to the buffet table and dropped a few things on my plate while Daniel filled his again. I set my plate down at the half-empty table set aside for the wedding party when I heard the fussing begin. I scurried over to Sarah with my pack of hushes, threats, and bribes. There was some haggling and some very slow liftings of the fork while I watched in the gloom.
Finally, I turned my daughter loose again. My plate of food would be cold, but I was past eating anyhow. Mirrors flashed and laughter burst from the ladies’ room when I opened the door. There stood Molly surrounded by her hippie-chick girlfriends who touched her veil and dress, her hair and face, and told her she was beautiful. She was flushed and a little out of breath, fanning herself with one hand while the other fluttered the wide skirt of her dress up and down, revealing and hiding the dragon by turns. Her teeth gleamed as her laugh, as red as her hair, filled the room. I was a green sliver in the background as I dried my hands. I smiled in her direction, envious of her friends, and hurried back to my children.
In the dim reception hall, the opening chords of “Harvest Moon” elicited a sigh from the overheated guests. I scanned the room for my husband. He stood nearby, videotaping the dance floor, where Molly had materialized. She stepped toward her husband, who curled around her like a vine. His head bent toward her as she talked in his ear, and his arms curved around her so his hands held her at the waist where her dress nipped in.
My eyes followed my little sister, a patch of white in the darkened room. A dragon bristled on her leg and a scar nestled between her collarbones, concealing a secret that was even then blooming in the hollow of her throat. Neil Young warned all of us that the time was getting late, but Molly lifted her face, round and fresh and pink, for a kiss. I, too, reached for my husband, because I thought it was just the beginning.
My eyes followed my little sister, a patch of white in the darkened room. A dragon bristled on her leg and a scar nestled between her collarbones, concealing a secret that was even then blooming in the hollow of her throat. Neil Young warned all of us that the time was getting late, but Molly lifted her face, round and fresh and pink, for a kiss. I, too, reached for my husband, because I thought it was just the beginning.
Elizabeth M. Dalton’s short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Sliver of Stone Magazine, Clockhouse Review, New Millennium Writings, Earth’s Daughters, PMS: Poem/Memoir/Story, Ellipsis: Literature and Art, River City, upstreet, and r.kv.ry quarterly literary journal. She received her MFA in fiction from Spalding University in 2016 and teaches humanities at Ball State University. She lives in Mooreland, Indiana, with her husband, John.
A 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee, Dalton's story can be found in Issue 16 of Glassworks.
