Reap What You’ve Sow

WARNING FOR DESCRIPTIONS OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE, CHILD ENDANGERMENT, AND THE EFFECTS IT HAS ON MENTAL HEALTH. Reader discretion is advised.

Mother always told me that our green thumb runs in the family.

I can remember sitting on the back porch steps of our little house off the bayou during a late July afternoon. Mosquitos travel in herds here, our sweat-slick bodies enticing with the promise of sweet, sweet nectar for the low price of eventual doom. As much as I hated the little buggers, it was worth it to fend them off just to get the chance to behold the wonder that is my Mother while at work.

With dainty hands stained by earth and soil, grit beneath her fingernails and a half-empty bottle of water from our kitchen sink at her side, the garden is where my Mother thrives. Surrounded by sage and riddled with rosemary, her multitudes of mint and maybe some Moonflowers, too. It seemed that whatever seed she touched would be blessed with her majesty, the sprouts that she grew knowing only love, tender as any mother could give.

It had been that late July afternoon, the air muggy with humidity despite there being no clouds in the sky, that she had given me my first sprout ; barely more than a bud, held within a small and delicate pot of her own design. I can remember feeling overwhelmed with wonder, the excitement thrumming through my veins. As though the moment I had been waiting for was finally coming to bear fruition.

“Marigolds,” she had explained to me, with that gentle upturn of a smile that she always had when she was feeling proud, “said to bring joy, just like you do. Fitting for your first addition to the family, hm?”

Her fingers had raised to brush against the stray blonde strands of my hair before tapping against the button of my nose. I had giggled then, giddy and sweet, pulled in by the soft evergreen of her eyes — such a strong contrast to the deep and brooding brown of mine.

“Promise me that you’ll take good care of it?” She had asked, and as any obedient child would, I had nodded. I’d been determined, if not certain, that I would do just that. My family did have a green thumb, after all. How hard could it possibly be?

It was less than two days later, with leaves riddled with holes and stalks sinking down into soft, moist soil, that I was bringing her the wilted remains. The look on her face, the flash of disgust and disappointment, was nothing in comparison to what was still to come. The distance that would follow, the empty pot still sitting on my windowsill.

It would be two weeks before we began to then see the effects spread to my mother’s garden. Bugs, with their tiny gnashing teeth and skittering legs, laying a quick infestation to our home. I’d never known my mom as much of the religious type, but I can remember her prayers. The potentness of her glare.

It didn’t take a genius to tell that she blamed me for the curse that now afflicted us.

I did not understand it. How could my Mother, kind and sweet as the harvested fruit we had once left sitting upon counters and filling our bellies, turn so bitter and cold? Truly, I had tried my best, had I not?

My young hands, it was not them who would pluck upon those sprouting leaves. It was not my teeth that would tear holes through softened stems, and it was not my belly that would be filled with those bright, vibrant greens. In fact, I would go to bed just as hungry as she would, a Mother too stubborn not to eat from within her own garden.

Those following months, we would eat what could be salvaged from infestation, until eventually it was nothing that would grow forth from that dampened soil. It was hunger that would drive me, a small age of 10 , to wander through those old, swampy trails, making the trek miles out into the nearest town.

I had never been allowed to go to town before, and beforehand, I had never seen the point in wanting to. When my Mother and I had once thrived upon her garden, I didn’t see the need for anything else.

As I stumbled, stomach growling with a gnawing and constant reminder of my hunger and guilt, I could not bring myself to care about the stares I would get from the passerbys. The eyes who would scan my frame with pity and then skitter away, just as skittish as the bugs that would devour and devour.

I paid them no mind, until I would collapse within the entrance of the storefront. What happened next remains a bit of a blur to me. The store clerk, I do remember, was a kindly older man. A father, at one point, maybe — or perhaps he was, or maybe he truly was just a nice man.

Either way, he had seen me, frame left with grooves from the clutches of starvation. Little bits of coins and paper I had managed to scrounge up held tightly within my hands, offered to him, pleadingly, frantically.

He had been the one to then shake his head, to urge those coins back into the sanctity of my pockets and take from his own stock instead. He let me have my fill of a carton of strawberries — not quite as ripe and plump as the ones I had once savored in my youth, but somehow tasted sweeter all the same.

He had let me rest there until the dizziness and nausea would pass. The questions he would ask were concerned, but never prying. Still, I could not help but bring myself to remain weary. After all, my mother had once offered me strawberries, too.

“Why didn’t you take my money, sir ?” I had asked, voice hoarse from disuse, as there had been no use arguing within my home anymore.

The man didn’t answer right away. Instead, he had wordlessly gotten up, and returned with a cup of water for me first.

Clearing his throat, he had waited patiently for me to take it, even when I hesitated. “Ain’t no reason I should have to take that from you, lil’ miss,” he had said, his own voice rough as the first sips of water touched my lips. I had not realized just how parched I was. “Besides, them strawberries come from nice Miss O’Neil down the way. She’d be happy to know they were goin’ to such a service.”

I hadn’t known what to say to that, so instead, I took one more greedy sip of water before holding the cup back out for the gentleman to take.

“Well, I thank you kindly, sir,” I had said, because my Mama had always taught me to be polite, “but is there any way I can use that money to buy some more? You see, my mama is back home, and I know she’s hungry too.”

There had been a flicker of something in those dark, oldened eyes then — an emotion that to this day I know not the name of. Perhaps it was pity, or maybe it was the flash of a memory itself. The slightest of frowns upon a face worn by age that is then quickly chased away by a laugh.

It was followed by a pat on the back. “You have a good heart, kid,” he had said, before pausing, a thoughtful expression upon his face. “Let me make you a deal ; you give me two of those coins there, and I give you. . .”

He had moved behind the counter, leaning down to then reveal a bow. Carved of a nice dark wood, he placed it down for me to see beside the register, alongside two neatly set arrows.

“One for the bow, one for the arrows.”

I can remember feeling my own eyes widen, looking from him to the offering before me and back. “I don’t quite know how to shoot any bows,” I had whispered, uncertain, and he had ruffled the hair upon my little head.

“That’s part of the deal, now,” he replied, winking. “I’ll teach ya, but you’ve got to promise to come back once you know how to, you hear? I’m always looking for fresh fur trades, and Miss O’Neil — well, I know how she sure loves her rabbit stew.”

That was the beginning of it all. From then on, I would travel back and forth between town and home quite often. I came to know the trails well, and also learned that the man who owned the store’s name was Mr. Reese, though he told me just to call him Jessie.

He would teach me how to shoot that bow, along with many other things. I made my first kill, and I had cried, and it was his hand that had stayed upon my back. I had traded the meat to Miss O’Neill for a carton of strawberries, but the fur Jessie had told me was alright to keep.

“Do what you wish with it,” he had said, “as long as you honor it. That life was precious, but so is yours.”

I buried it out in the damp, empty soils of the garden when I got home that evening. I wouldn’t know it at the time, but those would be the first flowers to grow within the garden since my Mother had given up her soil.

Even so, with all I had done, all I continued to do, my mother would continue to grow colder. Even with the onset of her own sickly state, she blamed me for the losses we had suffered. For her illness.

“You’re but a curse upon this land, child.” She had spat at me one bed-ridden night as I tried, fruitless as usual, to feed her the last morsels of rabbit stew I had made for her. There was something almost wild to those quickly fading evergreen eyes. Angry. “What magicks must I have done wrong to have raised a beast like you?”

It was only then that I knew for certain, the truth behind her ‘gifts’ of blessings and good. That night, I had set down the spoon, looked my Mother in the eyes, and said, “You wished to always reap what you sow, Mom? Well, it just so happens that your price is long overdue."

I had taken my bow then and left, out into the hot and sticky summer night, back into the bayou that had long since become more similar to home. That night, I had cried in Jessie’s arms while I finally told him everything. Not just the little bits and pieces he had gotten over the years.

He hadn’t said much, but he had held me tighter, and I could see tears reflecting in those dark and wise eyes of his. The slight shake of his hands as he soothed me, told me that it was okay, that I didn’t have to go back.

“You’re welcome here,” he had said, voice gravelly, hand soothing over my curls ruined by the night's humidity. “You know that, you hear me? You’re welcome here.”

I hadn’t been sure at the time, but I had nodded anyway. We went to Miss O’Neill’s after that, and while she had been quite fussed at first opening the door so late, she had wordlessly ushered us inside at the sight of my reddened eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

She set me up in her guest room, and I’d fallen asleep to the sound of their hushed voices whispering outside my door. At one moment, I had thought I’d heard Jessie even cry, but to this day I could never be quite sure.

The next morning, I woke to the smell of a freshly baked strawberry tart.

It smelled like home.