Rootbound

“Today, I take Texas!” Antoine said, deepening his voice to adopt the bravado of a confident athlete predicting victory.

Carolina laughed and watched his dread locks swing side to side as he hopped on his shitty, fifty-pound mountain bike and worked the pedals in that exaggerated, jumping-up-and-down, grunting way he always did to get a chuckle out of her.

“No pain no gain!” he called back over his shoulder.

He could pass as a jock with his broad shoulders and muscular frame—and those calves—but Carolina knew that was only a millimeter deep.

“Stop it, dork,” she shouted.

Antoine laughed. “Dork?”

Texas Street was a steep, daunting hill, and the near-triple digit mid-spring heat suggested that this would not, in fact, be the day Antoine would make it all the way up.

“Why the hell are we even riding right now?” he had asked earlier. She knew—she had to remind herself—that he was only there because he was desperate to carve out an hour of her schedule, even if that meant tagging along for a project on his day off.

She felt a little guilty watching him struggle, a dark spot growing in the center of his back.

Carolina could take Texas Street in her sleep. Part of that was her top-of-the-line touring bike, which probably cost what Antoine paid a year in rent, but mostly it was her life. She’d been riding forty, sixty miles per day for decades, actually increasing as she’d eased into her mid-thirties. The image of her breezing into an apartment complex with her saddlebags bulging with seeds, tools, and supplies had become an icon for Unity Food Project. Somehow, bikes and urban farming had grown together as the city—or, rather, a handful of residents—began to really put in the effort to adapt to the growing climate crisis.

“I got tired of waiting for policy to catch up with failing supply chains” she’d said in interview after interview. “I had to start doing something real.”

She let Antoine get a hundred yards ahead, sipping from her water bottle and laughing at him, a bit of a cartoon, a bit of a sweetheart. She casually screwed on the cap and slid her bottle into its holder under her seat, then calmly clipped into her pedals.

In sharp contrast to Antoine’s jerky motions, Carolina was the picture of grace. She seemed to float along magically, her feet spinning fluidly around the crank. The trend of ebikes had died down a decade before, but she looked like a throwback to the days when San Diegans took the city’s hills pedaling easily, while their bikes whirred along. She’d never disparaged the trend, and it was sad that all those people were now back in cars with their dirty emissions or far greater strain on the dirty grid than the little bikes, but she was all for human power.

She whistled a little tune as she passed Antoine.

“Nice day for a ride,” she said with a wink.

Antoine panted.

“Girl—” He stopped short, unable to get any other words out.

“Remind me to take a look at that crank arm later,” Carolina said, nodding toward the tortured creak Antoine’s bike moaned with every down-pedal of his right foot.

She pointed her chin uphill, whistling with an easy smirk on her face.

The traffic light turned yellow as she passed through the intersection a third of the way up the hill, and she calculated the light’s timing and Antoine’s progress—it would be green again by the time he reached it. He didn’t like her to stop and wait for him. They’d been through this before. That seemed to be the one thing in the world that would hurt his pride. Antoine was okay admitting he couldn’t do it, okay with her getting to the top of the hill ten minutes ahead of him, but something about her waiting for him along the way or slowing to his walking speed really made him defensive. So, they’d meet at the top.

“Hey, Judith,” Carolina said, tapping the screen of the phone mounted on her handlebars. Answering video calls while biking was part of the job. Judith would love it. It would be an experience.

“Heeey, Caro,” Judith sang, beaming into her camera. “The guys installed those raised beds while I was at the dojo. Ohhh, they’re gorgeous. Exactly what we were hoping for!”

Now, first, Carolina did not go by Caro—at least not with professional acquaintances. And, second, she chuckled a little at Judith wedging the fact that she’d been at “the dojo” into the first breath like Carolina had any idea what that meant or that they had anything close to the kind of relationship that warranted personal disclosures. But, third, she was genuinely pleased to hear that Judith was happy with the raised beds. Carolina rarely worked with Homeowners’ Associations because they were always just looking to improve aesthetics and ultimately raise property values—off Carolina’s and the other UFP volunteers’ free labor—rather than developing a useful project growing food. But Carolina had helped her see the value of replacing the cedar fence with wrought iron on the south side of the condo complex, thus exposing their communal backyard to full sun, then milling the boards and repurposing them into raised beds for staple crops like tomatoes, kale, and potatoes.

“That’s great, Jude,” Carolina said, smirking a bit to herself. “I’ll be up tomorrow and help you with those seedlings.”

“Oh, that’s perfect. Are you biking up Texas Street right now?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my goodness, Caro. On such a hot day?”

“Yeah, well, you gotta put in the work, Jude.”

Then, from behind Carolina came a terrible sound, like something from a movie soundtrack going overboard selling the offscreen drama. There was a screech, a thud, the shrieking sound of metal on metal, a rumble, a blaring car horn.

Carolina turned to see the light still green and a large pickup truck parked crooked just beyond the intersection.

She pulled one foot out of the pedal clip and stood there looking back.

“No,” she said, calmly.

She shook her head. “No.”

“No, no.” She said, dropping her bike.

“No. No, fuck no.”

Her breaths were short and strained, her extremities tingling. Her head felt like it was fucking on fire and why was she still fucking wearing this goddamn bike helmet? She reached for the strap, but the buckle wasn’t where it should’ve been, where it had always been, where she’d reached for it dozens of times every day for years and years. She gave up on the strap and yanked off the helmet anyway, pulling some hair out in the process as she began running.

“No. What the fuck? Antoine!” She ran toward the front of the truck as if to keep it between her and what might be on the pavement behind it, as if she didn’t want to see.

“What the fuck did you do?” she screamed to the man in a hardhat and safety vest climbing out of the driver seat, looking terrified.

He opened his mouth to speak.

“No, shut the fuck up! Antoine!” she screamed, now catching a glimpse of him spread out behind the truck.

“Antoine! Get the fuck up, Antoine!”

Another driver had gotten out of their car and was standing over Antoine, talking on the phone, asking for an ambulance. And crying.

***

Four-cell biodegradable jumbo seed trays. Compressed bamboo pulp, straw, rice hulls, cornstalks.

Twenty-four trays of tomato seedlings. Twelve trays of kale.

Sixteen miles north of the intersection where Carolina knelt beside the body of the man who loved her, the seedling roots circled the inside of their cups, groping millimeter-by-millimeter, searching for the space in which they could thrive. The trays within range of the morning sprinklers survived this way.

Carolina knew. She knew even that night. She knew when she spent hours crying in the arms of Antoine’s sister, each pushing the other deeper with their own sorrow.

When she finally fell asleep in her bed just after sunrise the next morning, she dreamt not of the horrifying sight of Antoine’s crushed body but of the seedlings she’d lined up behind Judith’s garage.

And when she woke just a couple hours later, it wasn’t Antoine’s voice saying “Today, I take Texas!” that echoed in her head. It was the faint sound of Judith calling out from her phone still mounted on the handlebars: “Did I lose you?”

She did nothing that next day. No eating. No biking. And for days after, she ignored all texts and calls from Unity Food Project workers and clients. She texted or talked to a few friends lifelessly, curled up in bed. But always, always, she thought of those seedlings. Would the roots ever poke through the fibrous trays and find their way to the soil. Or would they just circle, desperately?

A week after the accident, another major climate report came out saying the same thing they’d been saying for a decade and a half: “What the fuck?”

A local reporter—a good one—texted Carolina for a comment on the report. Carolina texted back, “it doesn’t matter what we do. you can dedicate your life to honest-to-goodness, on-the-ground change, to the transformation of your city and the lives of the people around you, but none of it fucking matters and the cars will always win and that’s how you’ll everything that fucking matters.” She didn’t bother checking if the story ever came out.

The roots. She thought of the roots always, circling, white veins pressing against the walls of their cells.

She deleted all voicemails, but finally she texted Judith. “did anyone plant those seedlings?”

“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for a month. What’s going on?”

Carolina spent another day in bed before responding. “i’m taking time off.”

Judith probed for details, but Carolina refused to share, offering to plant the seedlings “soon.” No, it didn’t need to be a time when Judith was there. No, she didn’t know when exactly. No, she didn’t need help. Unity Food Project had always worked with residents, never doing it by themselves. But now Carolina couldn’t see the point of that anymore.

She walked there. She had thought she might be able to get on her bike, but when the moment came, no. She kicked the double-leg stand and felt the lightness of the frame, balanced it with one hand on the seat post.

And then she transferred everything from her saddle bags to her backpack and started walking. Eighteen miles. Walking the way a sleepwalker trudges through the night.

Slow. Stopping for water in a park. Bumming a raw ear of corn from a complex where she’d helped set up a now-thriving, resident-run garden years before. When the cob was bare and her teeth full of kernel bits, she dangled it limply in her hand and let it slip into the weeds on the side of the road.

She waited at a crosswalk watching the asphalt shimmer in the heat. “that’s antoine’s soul rising from his body,” she said aloud, though this was nonsense for many reasons—not the least of which is that she was miles from where he’d died. The only thing that kept her from crying at the thought was that a slip of the tongue had made her actually say something more like, “that’s antoine’s soil.”

The light changed, and she walked on, one small step after another.

“i’m carolina with unity food project. i'm here to plant some seedlings,” she said to a woman who was on her way out of Judith’s complex.

She held the gate and ushered Carolina in with a pleasant greeting. They’d met before, apparently.

Carolina was relieved to not have to contact Judith for entrance. She was there for her obligation to the plants and nothing more.

The raised beds were beautiful. The builders had made them look great, which was always challenging with the thin repurposed fence boards.

Carolina found the seedlings where she’d left them, untouched. The ones that had been watered looked small and discolored but alive. The others, about a quarter of the kale, had shriveled. There would be no point planting those. The dead never come back.

She pulled the first seedling from the tray, finding what she expected, what she’d seen in her dreams and whenever she closed her eyes: a tangled mass of roots compacted into the shape of the cell. Cradling it in her fingers, she began gently pulling with her thumbs, little by little, until the roots hung free. With one hand, she pushed the rich, light soil in the bed aside to form a pocket in which she pressed the seedling.

One after another, she massaged the roots and pressed them into the soil, filling the beds.

When Judith came out, Carolina eyed the trays, half of which were still filled.

“Caro!” Judith said, coming toward her.

Carolina kept her body turned toward the beds and gave only a slight nod, hoping Judith would take the hint.

“What on earth happened? Where have you been?”

Carolina pulled another kale seedling and began massaging its roots. For a long time, she didn’t speak. She thought about telling Judith everything, starting with the day she’d met Antoine, starting even before that maybe, with her lifelong struggle against despair watching the world destroy everything beautiful. But Judith’s face turned serious, apparently catching on.

“Carolina?” she said, placing a hand on her back. Carolina flinched at the contact and took a deep breath, then another and another. She closed her eyes as the breaths began to stutter.

She didn’t speak but continued working, deliberately, until she was sure Judith was watching the process. She pulled a seedling, freed its roots, pushed it into the soil, repeated, repeated. And then she handed one to Judith. And only then did Carolina look her in the eye.

This woman. Carolina did not like her. But she seemed to understand.

They worked side-by-side, pulling a seedling, untangling its roots, and plunging it into the soil, one after another. There were still a few full trays left when Carolina finally spoke.

“i’ve got nothing left.”

Judith placed her hand on Carolina’s hand in the soil and looked into her eyes with a crooked frown.

Carolina was astonished to recognize a pool of tears welling up in each of Judith’s bottom eyelids.

She nodded and turned her face away, but she didn’t withdraw her hand.

“i’ve dedicated my life to fighting—” She tried to think of a name for what she was fighting against, but after all these years, she had no idea what to call it, so she left it blank. “well, anyway, i don’t know if i can do it anymore.”

Judith wiped a tear, leaving a streak of mud across her face.

“i'm gonna go now.”

Judith embraced her.

Carolina picked up her backpack and walked to the gate.

“One day at a time, Caro. Step by step,” Judith called to her.

The gate slammed behind her, but Carolina stopped.

“It’s too hot to plant potatoes, but I say we do it anyway.”

Judith smiled. “Let’s do it. Hey, do you want a ride home?”

Carolina shook her head, waved and began the long walk home.