It’s summer, and Maybelle knows this because the birds are singing louder and the temperature is getting warmer. Because she’ll be turning on the air conditioning soon and fighting off mosquitoes during her early evening walks. But her surest indication of the arrival of summer is the increased traffic at her front door: UPS, FedEx, take your pick.
“This is the one,” said Maybelle’s husband, Precious, as he ran to sign for yet another package one recent afternoon. “I’ve done my research and I’m convinced this particular planter system will yield a richer crop of vegetables than last year’s with regard to ratio of time invested divided by seeds planted and water distributed.” There is more he could say on the subject—take Maybelle’s word on this—but he was so excited about his new contraption that he dashed toward the deck to break open the box before she could sprinkle him with such questions as, “Honey, what about the planter from last year?” and “Sweetpea, how about the newfangled hydroponics thingamajig you bought the year before that?” (Because their house does not have a backyard to speak of, Precious is limited to what he can grow—or attempt to grow—in pots on the deck.)
“Trust me,” he shouted through the screen door as if he had read Maybelle’s mind. “This year will be different.” His eyes were gleaming almost instantly, brimming over with visions of juicy tomatoes and firm squash, leafy spinach and tasty peppers. All this before he’d even ripped into his bags of mushroom-infused mulch and nutrient-enhanced potting soil stacked in the carport. There is an upside to her husband’s summertime fascination with manure, however, because it reminds Maybelle of her father, and she means that in the nicest way.
Maybelle’s daddy, who died in 2000, also loved to garden. His carefully tended rows in the farthest reaches of the backyard might yield cucumbers and tomatoes one year, lettuce and zinnias the next. Always there were roses. Sunflowers made a rare appearance one season, and Maybelle has vivid memories of a lot of corn: fried corn, creamed corn, corn blended into batter for cornbread, corn on the cob (buttered and nestled in a piece of white bread, her personal favorite).
The planning started early for Maybelle’s dad, as soon as the gardening catalogs began arriving during the winter months. He’d pore over them and dog-ear the pages that tempted him with exotic hybrids or increased yields. Soon enough, as February melted into March, deliveries from Jackson and Perkins, Wayside Gardens, and White Flower Farm—just to name a few—would begin to arrive.
Now Maybelle spends her winter evenings with a different man, another eager gardener who routinely orders more plants and seeds and related paraphernalia than he actually needs. (Maybelle has a few more purses than she actually needs, though, so she and Precious have adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning gardening and shopping.) And this summer is no different from the other five they have spent together as husband and wife.
Apparently the newly arrived “sure fire” system was somewhat difficult to assemble, for soon after Precious opened the box labeled “Get Growing Now!,” Maybelle was assaulted by pounding noises.
“Okay,” he said, a bit of sweat hovering between his eyebrows when she went outside to make sure he wasn’t bleeding. “I think I’ve got it figured out now. The instructions didn’t include any pictures—can you believe that?—and they must have left out a few steps, because this thing was tricky to put together. But I just know we won’t be the least bit tempted to drive down to the Farmer’s Market this year. Trust me.”
Maybelle has heard it said that daughters marry their fathers. She did not, although she can say without question that she loves those two men like no other. Despite their differences, they share a few commonalities, not the least of which might be their appreciation of dirt, and their love of Maybelle.
Copyright Amy Lyles Wilson; first posted on my now defunct blog, Maybelle at Midlife
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 12:13AM 