Barren

The Iowa air is dense, syrupy. It carries the scent of the earth, of the fields, and of the corn. The towering stalks clog it with the heat of the July sun like a greenhouse. A breeze ripples the topmost leaves of the endless rows, but it does not reach Anna down in the thick of it, where her ankles bend and twist with the uneven ground. She looks forward through the tangled green even as her work-gloved fingers skim the clutter of leaves on her right, searching. Sensing a slight variation in thickness in one of the leaves, her hand automatically grips it, tight. Wrapped within the leaf is a tassel; it lets out a sharp squeak and a tiny puff of yellow pollen as she pulls it swiftly from the top of the stalk. She repeats this motion another hundred or so times before she reaches the end of the row, her pace never faltering but her arms settling into an ache that has become a familiar companion in the last few days.

“Wow, Mrs. Miller!” A papery rustling accompanies Ethan’s young voice as he scurries up from behind her, one row over. “You’re getting really good at this. I only found like, three tassels that you missed, and we’re almost to the end. I followed Blake for about twenty yards and counted seventeen that he missed just in that little bit.” 

“You know, I’ve told you that you can just call me Anna when we’re not in class, Ethan.” Anna grins over at him. 

“Uh, right. Sorry. Yes, ma’am. Anyway, I’d better go see what’s taking the rest of the team so long. You’re always so much faster.” He straightens up onto his tiptoes, facing back down the row, in an unsuccessful attempt to peer over the six-foot stalks, then glances back at her. “The end of the row is just up ahead. Take a breather while you wait.” With that, he plunges back into the sea of green behind them. He’s a sweet kid; kind, respectful. The kind of kid Anna hopes to have someday.

She’s been working as a detasseler for the last eight days, and already it has begun to wear her, the freeze-drenching dew of the early mornings and the savage heat of the afternoons slicing through her nerves the way the leaves of the corn plants have sliced a hundred red lines along her arms, throat, legs. The job is simple: walk the rows of corn pulling the tassels, which are the plants’ pollen-coated reproductive parts, out of the tops of the female rows so they don’t cross-pollinate. This way, the male rows — which are a different species of corn — will be able to pollinate the female rows, creating a hybrid crop for the farmers to plant with next spring. It’s also one of the only jobs in Iowa that can be held as early as age fourteen, so at twenty-nine Anna is the strange, ancient adult amidst a swarm of early high schoolers, some of whom — Ethan included — she’s had in class. She can feel their young eyes pondering her, wondering why a grown-up would choose such a grimy job, reconfiguring their opinions of the woman they’ve previously only seen in pencil skirts, handing out homework. 

Still, she reminds herself, it’s relatively good money in a short span of time. Or it would have been. She’d signed on when the crop looked like it would be healthy, meaning plenty of hours from local farmers. Before the drought had smothered into weather forecasts and the fast-growing corn began to wither and shrivel. Either way, medical bills and treatments don’t pay for themselves, and she and Matt need the money. So here she is. 

Anna tugs at a particularly stubborn tassel, stopping for a moment to remove it and wipe a trickle of sweat from her neck. She breathes heavily, bringing her hand down from her throat to rest briefly on her stomach. High-risk pregnancies like this one can leave behind consequences. She can still recall the sick-soft voice of the doctor, the pity on his face. Maybe it’s time to consider termination. 

She yanks too hard on the next tassel, and the plant snaps back as she releases, leaves whipping under her mask to slice at the bottom of her chin. Termination? She still feels the bile rising angry in her stomach, the word barreling out of her and bristling from her vocal chords. I — we would never. We will never.

And they hadn’t. Matt had squeezed her hand supportively, standing up to stare down the doctor and brisk Anna from the room.

***

At the end of the row, she gulps a mouthful of disappointing warm water from her pack. It’s well-water, and the metallic, bloody tang of iron perches on her tongue. Strangely, the scorching breeze seems to be cooling off a little, despite it being what’s usually the hottest part of the day.

Anna sits down in the dirt to wait for Ethan and the rest of their group. Anna always winds up in Ethan’s group. He is smaller, less rambunctious than the other group leaders. Many of them initiate corn fights amongst their groups. They pull up plants by the stalk, whip them hard against the bottoms of their own boots or the hard bone of their knees, and the tassels shoot out like bullets in the direction of their teammates. Ethan never picks people for his group who do this, and they never ask to join him. 

  Anna pulls a leaf from the bottom of a nearby plant and peels it apart absently. She tugs at the too-long sleeves of Matt’s old polo. Along with the cuts from the leaves, which feel like itchy paper cuts, she has been suffering from corn rash, hives bubbling across her skin from the pollen, so today she has covered every inch of skin possible. It’s hotter, but worth it.

In the distance, the unseasonably cool breeze nudges clouds toward the field. Anna wonders if they, too, are empty. The state will suffer desperately from this drought come harvest. Last week, gray clouds rolled across the sky, fat with rain, but they had been greedy. They hoarded the much-needed water and released it further north, offering it only to the lake-dotted lands of Minnesota.

Anna’s hand drifts back to rest above her womb as her mind drifts back to its emptiness. They had tried three more doctors before finding one who would help them fight for their baby’s life. She carried their precious son for a total of 35 weeks — a full 21 days longer than any other baby had survived with his condition — and she and Matt held him for the three beautiful hours of his life. They named him Asher, meaning happiness, and they thanked God for those three hours as they cried into each other. She was so glad she got to meet him. 

But those moments had their price; she is now what her doctor calls “unlikely to conceive” because of bitter scar tissue lining her uterine wall. The likelihood of a new embryo finding a healthy patch of tissue to attach itself to is almost nonexistent. Three years later, she and Matt keep the door to the nursery closed, look straight ahead when they walk past it in the hall. Surgery to remove the scar tissue would cost them around six grand. Any more fertility treatment after that will be at least another few thousand, and they’re still paying back student loans, a mortgage, a car payment. Not to mention, the debt that comes with delivering a dying infant. So, now she’s working with fifteen-year-olds in a cornfield while her husband makes the fifty-minute drive each day to package cereal at General Mills.

A cacophony of crashing and thrashing and pubescent laughter materializes as the rest of Anna’s group finally tumbles from their rows. The group’s eyes mostly gloss over Anna as she stands and smiles toward them, and Ethan glances curiously in the direction of the clouds.

“Alright, guys,” Ethan’s soft voice gathers everyone’s attention. “This is our last round here, so hop on the bus when we get back. Mr. Kent says we have one more field today, and it’s only a 43-acre, so if we’re quick we might be done by three. But, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to be sloppy. If we miss too many tassels, they’ll make us come back and redo it, okay?”

Everyone nods in agreement, buzzed about getting home a little early today. Anna frowns. She was hoping for more hours and more pay.

Back on the bus, Anna slumps against the leather seat. Her hand travels back to her belly, reminding herself of why she is here. The screech of the bus’s brakes sounds in her ears like the high-pitched wail of a child. She gulps down another drink.

***

The bus rolls to a stop alongside a desiccated piece of earth and a blue porta-potty, and everyone on the bus stares from the mud-slaked windows. The field is narrow, meaning the rows march on for close to a mile, even if there aren’t as many of them, and the land is hilly and rough so walking will be more difficult. Fields like this one are the least loved by the detasseling crew, but that isn’t what catches their attention now. Anna peers outside and her shoulders fall. The corn here is barely waist-high, sun-scorched and colorless.

The detasselers walk to the edge of the field. Above them, those strange clouds draw nearer, carrying potential, and the weight of the summer heat seems to falter. Anna shifts her eyes downward, to the corn.

Tentatively, she bends down to pull a tassel from a withering stalk; it does not budge. The top of the stalk is shriveled defiantly around the tassel and its pollen, refusing to give up its hope of creating new seed. A small hole rips through the cloth of Anna’s left glove, and she loses her grip, the force of her pull throwing her backward.

“Yikes,” Ethan offers a gloved hand and pulls her up, then scratches his neck. “How are we supposed to get this done?”

“Looks like we won’t be able to pull all of them like usual, gang.” Mr. Kent approaches, surveying the desolate field. He reaches down and grips the stalk of the plant, below the start of the tassel, and snaps it off. “Do your best and pull what you can; break off what you can’t. The main thing is to get the tassel onto the ground where the pollen can’t pick up on the wind.”

Ethan nods and directs Anna to her row. She moves into place, stooping awkwardly to grip, pull, and snap the tassels from the dying field. Not great odds that this field will produce anything for harvest this year anyway, so the farmer is probably wasting his money. Clods of thirsty earth crumble and crack beneath her feet, begging for water. This land is barren, empty. She says a silent prayer that God will send some rain, bring some life here, at least to let this poor farmer bring home enough money to last until next year. 

Even though the work is much harder in this field, Anna’s pace is still much faster than her teammates’. She trudges as quickly as she can, cresting a hill and disappearing down the other side, leaving everyone else out of sight. Although the air is cooler now, she still finds herself sweating from the exhaustion. 

Push, Anna, she tells herself. Every moment of work marks a few cents closer to surgery, to a baby, to motherhood. Push, Anna, crisp nurses in white scrubs had ordered; Matt had held her hand. Just a little more, Anna. Push!

 There is a sudden crack! as her ankle buckles sideways on a patch of rocky ground. She falls.

Anna lies with her face in the dirt, turned to the side so she can let out shallow, rapid breaths for about five minutes before Ethan discovers her. 

“Mrs. Miller?” His face quickly drains to a pale ash color. “Mrs. Miller! Crap. Are you okay? What happened? We gotta get you back to the bus. I’m so sorry, can you walk?” He helps her roll onto her back while he spews terrified questions, but the angle of her already-swelling ankle makes it clear she won’t be able to stand on her own, let alone walk. Maybe one of the bigger guys could have supported her all the way back to the bus, but not Ethan.

“Just wait here, okay? I promise I’ll be right back. I’m so sorry. I’ll be right back!” Ethan jumps up and clambers over the top of the hill back toward the bus, calling for Mr. Kent.

A few moments later, Mr. Kent appears with a very ragged Ethan and some of the older boys, the ones who like to shoot tassels and bust up the corn. The seriousness on their faces seems foreign.

“An ambulance is on its way, Anna,” Mr. Kent grips her under one shoulder while one of the other boys grabs the other, and together they lift her up to begin the arduous trek back. “Anna, listen. That ankle looks like it might be broken. Why aren’t you wearing the ankle braces we gave you?”

Anna groans. They were uncomfortable and slowed her down, so she had stopped wearing them after the first day. 

Mr. Kent sighs “Anna, I know you’ve heard me tell the kids a dozen times. You have to wear the equipment we give you.” His weathered face is strained under Anna’s weight. “Better than having to sit out the rest of the season.”

She is done for the summer. Her hand lands low on her stomach, just between her hips.

***

The ankle is broken, the doctor says, and Anna will need to stay in a cast for the next six weeks. They give her some painkillers and crank up the medical bills just a bit higher. Matt leaves work early to come pick her up from the hospital, and he reassures her the whole twenty minute drive home, despite her sad irritation. Her hand doesn’t leave her belly; her arms ache, not from exhaustion but from emptiness. 

How perfectly Asher’s little body had nestled into the crook of her arms, his toes curled into her elbow as he cried into her chest. Since that day, she sometimes gets the feeling that her arms are too light for the rest of her body, and she must search desperately for something to weigh them down. 

The car ride is a strange scene: Matt smelling of cereal and cardboard, Anna of sweat, pollen, and earth; a pile of dirty neon detasseling equipment — hat, gloves, waterpack — muddying the backseat; a pair of rented crutches sticking up awkwardly behind Anna’s seat. Outside, the tumbling clouds have wrapped up the sun, and the temperature diminishes rapidly.

“It’s okay, hon.” Matt’s voice is gentle, cautious. “We’ll figure something out. But, Anna, you have to be careful. Sometimes you just push too hard, you know? This isn’t the right kind of work for you, love.”

Anna grimaces at him. She can feel how hard he’s trying, the threads of his voice pulled tight. “We need this money, Matt. What was I supposed to do? It’s six grand for the surgery. Just for the surgery.” Her own voice grinds out of her; she works to balance her pitch and volume.

“I know, Anna,” he says. He flicks his eyes from the road to offer her a worried glance.

“Just. Stop.” She spits the words. Can’t he feel it, too? Don’t his arms ache, don’t his ears strain for the phantom laughter of a child? “We needed this,” she continues. Does his heart not break for every day that he was meant to be a father? “We needed it and now it’s gone. We have no money, Matt. I’ll never be a mother.” 

Surely, when he holds her at night and drapes his arm across her, he feels how the emptiness in her womb weighs heavy on their mattress, sinking them in it.

“Anna—”

“I said stop, Matt!” Her voice careens into him, even as she knows it is not his fault. “Stop sympathizing, stop trying so freaking hard! We’re buried in debt. The stupid medical bills, stupid car payment, stupid mortgage, and now this? Now I break my ankle in a cornfield and we owe another $2,000? The surgery will never happen, a baby will never happen, and all you can say is ‘we’ll figure something out.’” Anna bites back tears of frustration and sorrow.

Matt breathes in slowly, then exhales. His eyes stay steady on the road, his knuckles whiten slightly against the leathery steering wheel. He looks sad, Anna realizes. He looks broken.

“I’m sorry, Matt,” she says, softer this time. Matt reaches over with his right hand, gripping Anna’s thigh. He twists the wheel with his left and the car curves past the field where Anna’s team still stoops over stunted plants. And then, a white wisp drifts onto the windshield. Then another.

Matt lets out a low whistle and slows the car to a stop. “Is it … snowing? But it’s July — is that even possible?” 

The snowflakes shiver mysteriously down, softening as they reach the parched field. For the first time in memory, Iowa sees a flurry of pure, white snow in July — the end of the drought. It snows only for a moment, then the sun peeks through and the flakes turn to droplets, and a heavy rain begins to fall. 

Anna reaches her hand out of her window and catches one of the last flakes before they all turn to rain; it melts in her palm. A drop of water. A drop of life.

***