A Bird On Water Street (13 page)

“Yeah!” I smiled and hopped out of bed.

“We'll just need to get the garden ready first,” she said.

After breakfast, we grabbed two shovels from Dad's metal shop and walked out to the small fence that ran along one side of the garden in the backyard.

“We need to turn the soil, loosen it up so the roots will have an easier time spreading out,” Mom said. “Watch how I do it.” She stuck her spade into the ground and jumped on the head with her feet on either side of the handle. It sank easily into the earth. Then she leaned back on the handle, scooped up a big chunk of soil, and flipped it over into the hole she'd just created.

“Not bad,” she said. “It shouldn't be too hard to turn.”

I tried to jump on my shovel but landed on my rear end instead. “Ow!”

“Try it again,” Mom laughed. “I fell the first time I jumped on a shovel too.”

Three more tries and I finally landed squarely on the head. I fought to keep my balance as the spade slid into the ground underneath me. It was kind of like a little amusement ride. Once I'd gotten the shovel blade deep enough, I levered the handle like Mom had, but I couldn't fill my shovel as full as hers for nothing. I had no idea she was so strong.

Once I dug too far outside the garden and scraped up red clay, completely different from the garden's black soil, and hard as a brick. “Hey, Mom, look.”

“Yup. You can tell where I've been working cow manure into the ground for years now, can't ya? The darker soil is full of nutrients for your little seedlings, like a gourmet meal. The red ground is dead.”

The garden wasn't very big, but it was hard work.
How much work would it take to change all the ground in Coppertown?

After we raked the soil into even rows, the garden was ready. I ran to get my seedlings, but then walked out slowly with them like I was carryin' china. I set them down and then took a deep breath—a clean breath. Without the company running, the air didn't have that acrid smell to it anymore. I smiled. My seedlings might have a fighting chance.

We lined up the cups in the same order they were on my cookie sheet, setting them on top of the dirt rows. They looked much smaller spread apart and I tried to imagine how they'd fill in as they grew larger—at least I hoped they would.

I carefully turned each seedling over, loosened the cup off its roots, and then turned the plant into a small hole I dug with my hand. They were so delicate—each one a small treasure waiting to transform into somethin' grand.

We slid the seed packets over bent hangers, which we stuck in the ground at the end of each row to remind us what was what.

Then I dragged the hose from the house. Mom put a special showerhead on the nozzle that she'd been using all the years the garden never made it. Sunlight reflected on the water beads like stars as I sprayed a gentle arc from side to side, back and forth over the tiny seedlings and dark soil. Back and forth, back and forth. The soil turned black as it absorbed the water—like the ground was supposed to do in Coppertown but didn't.

I imagined I was one of the seedlings stretching up to the water and the warm sun. Were they humming with joy? I could almost hear 'em. I smiled at the idea that I could bring things to life like that.

“How long before they take off, do you think?” I asked Mom as we stood back to admire our work.

“I'd give 'em a few weeks to settle in and get going,” Mom said. “You'll need to water them every day, okay? Just like you been doin'—it's your job.”

“Yes ma'am!” I nodded.

Dad leaned in the doorframe. “They're outside planting Jack's garden,” he said into the phone receiver, the cord stretched across the kitchen.

I looked at Mom, it had always been
her
garden. Would she mind the slip? Obviously not. She shot me a huge smile.

“Grace,” Dad shouted. “Your dad wants to know what time he should come over for Jack's birthday dinner.”

“Tell him five o'clock and that we're having macaroni and cheese, Jack's favorite.” She turned to me. “And we're having Mrs. Markley's chocolate cake too.”

“Oh yum!” It was a tradition in our family, a recipe from way back, and it was the best chocolate cake on the planet. For all our slim meals of late, I was going to eat like a king that evening!

“You did good work, Jack. Hand me the hose and I'll finish up watering. Go find Piran and be home in time for your birthday dinner.”

My birthday dinner.

I knew Mom and Dad still couldn't do much by way of presents, but I wondered what Grandpa would give me. Maybe Mom had told him about the dirt bike? A voice whispered in the back of my mind that he couldn't afford it either, but I ignored it. Dreamin' was free!

O

When I got home from hanging out with Piran (who gave me a baseball card with bubblegum that he bought himself at Dilbeck's Pharmacy), Grandpa's truck was pulled up out front of the house with a tree—an entire tree, roots and all—standing up in a bucket in his truck bed with a blue bow tied around its trunk.

I barely had time to hide my disappointment.

“Happy birthday, Jack!” Grandpa said as he strode out to the yard. “What do you think? Grace told me about yer garden, and with that art you did for me at Christmas, I figured this'd be the perfect thing to get ya. It's a dogwood tree. I dug it up from the woods outside Coppertown. You can start that forest of yours.”

Not a bike, a tree. A tree that Grandpa dug up himself? And from the size of it, that weren't no easy task.

I looked at my grandpa—really looked. When did he stop standing up straight? Was he hurting? I couldn't believe he'd dug up an entire tree for me.

“You think it'll live?” I asked, suddenly anxious.

“I think it's got a better chance than it ever might've before. And I think it has a better chance with
you
.”

I didn't know what to say. My eyes got all watery and I hugged Grandpa so tight.

Finally he grunted and I stepped back. “Oh, I'm sorry! Did I hurt your back?”

“Not to worry, Jack,” he said. “That was just my heart bustin' its seams.”

O

I used some of the leftover manure from the garden and dug a hole nearby for the tree.

Grandpa was impressed with my hole-diggin' skills, which I had to put to work on the red ground. That ground was much tougher and before long I had blisters on my hands, but I had to finish. Mom stuck some bandages on me and Dad gave me some gloves to wear. I turned manure into the ground for a long time, knowing that what I did might make the difference between the tree living or dying.

When it was finally planted in the ground, it seemed much shorter. Of course, a good portion of the tree was underground, waitin' to take root. It's trunk looked skinnier too with all that bare land behind it, humbling it. Like David taking on Goliath, it needed me to keep it safe in the harsh environment of Coppertown. It needed
us
.

I handed Grandpa the hose to water it. “It'll be
our
forest,” I said.

r

Chapter 19

Jobs

April was more of the same old, same old. I thought I was gonna melt with boredom. I couldn't wait for May and the return of Music Fridays.

Aunt Livvy, Uncle Bubba, and Buster came over to join in since it was the first music night of the season and they didn't have anything like that in Lumpkin.

Aunt Livvy went on about how much I'd grown, but all I could see was how much my dad had shrunk. When he stood next to Uncle Bubba, it was obvious how much weight he'd lost. He used to be the bigger of the two, but not anymore.

I acted like I couldn't overhear Mom and Aunt Livvy talking about it as I grabbed an RC Cola from Grandpa's cooler.

“He won't give up on it, Livvy,” Mom whispered. “I don't know what to do.”

“Have you thought about gettin' a job?” Livvy said.

“I got married straight out of school,” Mom laughed. “I don't know about anything other than being a wife and mother.”

“Desperate times deserve desperate measures, Grace.”

Buster, Piran, and I tried to talk baseball, but it just got us down. Besides, it was hard to concentrate with the group of girls from our class looking at us and gigglin' every five minutes.

Buster checked his shirt. “Did I spill somethin'?”

“Nah, yer fine,” Piran said. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

I rolled my eyes. “Piran, Beth Ann has a crush on you. Didn't you know?”

Buster smacked Piran's arm, “Go, Mr. Studly!”

“She does?” Piran turned red from his neck right up to the top of his shiny red ears. Buster and I died laughing as we headed to the water's edge.

We skipped stones like we used to, teasing Piran about Beth Ann and comparing our favorite sports stars. It all felt so familiar, and yet everything was different.

O

My parents got into a heated conversation that night. Even with their door closed, I could tell it had something to do with what Aunt Livvy had said at the park. They got louder and louder until their bedroom door opened with a
whoosh
then slammed shut. Dad stomped down the hall, past my bedroom to the den.

I had a hard time getting to sleep, and when I finally did, I tossed and turned all night.

Mom was already gone the next morning when I entered the kitchen. The newspaper was pulled apart and scattered all over the table where Dad sat staring at his hands. I peeked in the den. A pillow and blanket were rumpled on the couch.

“Where's Mom?” I asked.

“She's off to find a
job
,” Dad muttered.

I made myself a bowl of cereal and tried to be quiet about it. Halfway through my meal, Dad suddenly pushed his chair back and stalked out to his metal shop.

When I returned home from hangin' out with Piran, Mom was sitting in her car in front of the house. I couldn't tell how long she'd been there, but the hood was cold and already covered with a thin sheen of silicone dust when I touched it to get her attention. She wiped her eyes before she climbed out. She looked so tired and small as I opened the kitchen door for her.

Dad was waiting inside. He had to know she'd been sittin' in her car. He would have heard her pull up. “I gather it didn't go well?”

Mom glared at him then sank into a kitchen chair. “Fifteen women showed up for the same job,” she said. “I didn't stand a chance.”

Dad turned to the sink before I could read his expression.

Sitting there in her Sunday dress and heels, she looked so fragile. “They made a mistake,” I said.
Who had the nerve to turn away my mom?

She blinked, but didn't look up. “I'll go change and get dinner going.”

r

Images of the Copper Basin

The plant in Copperhill, Tennessee, circa 1940.

1.