Cello was quiet, squinting against the strengthening sun.
“You did something you weren’t supposed to, I can tell.”
“Shut your mouth, Marcela. You’ll get in trouble yourself if you go around accusing people.”
“Well, did you?” she asked. Her dark eyes narrowed as she examined him. She was trying to read something there, Cello thought. Something she had no business reading.
“Course not,” he said as he rearranged his feet in the sticking mud.
Marcela looked almost disappointed.
The little kids were naked, but Marcela and Sabina were too old for that. They swam in their clothes, the way Letta had shown them. Still, Cello could see their bodies, no longer the bodies of children, beneath the sodden cloth. He knew just by growing, the girls were in danger; women always had to do terrible things at the garden.
He turned away, thinking it would propel Marcela back to the water. Instead, she moved closer.
“What was it?” She was quiet, like she knew the other kids shouldn’t hear her ask.
“Enough,” Cello said, careful to keep his voice even. “It’s none of your business. Swim or go back. I have to watch the little kids.”
Marcela just shook her head, drops of creek water from her hair splattering Cello’s shoulder. She stared down at Cello’s slouched figure. “You look so guilty.” Her voice was grating, unpleasant, like she was trying not to cry. “Whatever you did better not get me or Sabina in trouble.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Cello muttered.
“Nothing like that, but it is something. If you did something dumb, leave the rest of us out of it.” Marcela was louder now, her voice raspy and furious. Marcela walked off toward the creek, her hair a dark spill of ink against her mottled-gray-T-shirt-covered back.
Joanie had asked this favor of him; it was his decision alone to help her, and the consequences were his, too. He looked out to where the rest of the kids splashed.
“Time to get out!” he called, heading down to the stone-studded shore.
* * *
They walked back to the trailers and the kids dried off in the sun. Cello hadn’t swum, since he was just going to get dirty again.
That morning, the garden would need every pair of hands. They had planted too much. Letta was always greedy, always pushing. There was already more work than they could do, but still she wanted another plot cleared. The family worked every day in the summer, from just after breakfast until the sun began to set. They moved in an endless rotation, starting with the plot that had been tended last. Weeds grew swiftly around the Vine, as though they, too, wanted to be near it. The kids all had to work five times as hard as they would have had to work if they were growing corn or grain, or any other crop, to keep the space open for the Vine to grow.
When they got to the first field of the day, Letta was already there; Joanie and the baby were not.
“Come on!” she shouted, pulling Emil in by the arm as they approached. “Look sharp, especially in these first ten rows—there are already more weeds than I like to see. Y’all were slacking last time we came down here. All of the planting’ll be wasted if the weeds drink up all of our water and work.” The sun-warmed plot roiled with the twisting, newly growing Vine of Heaven. The Vine fenced away the earth, and the gaps between the finger-thick twists of plants were just wide enough for the children’s hands.
The little kids knew which shoots of green were worth money, and which were the weeds. It was the first thing they were taught. Sil understood that the greatest value in their youth was the delicate size of their hands. Emil and Miracle drew the unwanted plants out gently, and didn’t disturb the soil around the precious, striving, thread-thin roots the way a grown person’s pulling would. It was the reason Letta and Sil took in so many kids at the garden. Sil said there were roots moving through the ground that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, that’s how tender and new they were.
Miracle and Emil knew, thanks to Letta’s snap of the switch, which plants to leave alone. They were smart, especially Miracle. She always knew what should get pulled and what should stay.
“Marcela,” Letta continued. “I want you to follow Cello. He’s setting up a new plot—help him.”
“What?” Marcela whined. “Why can’t Joanie do it? Can’t I just weed with the little kids?”
“You’re not a little kid anymore. There needs to be a woman at every new planting. You’re a young lady now. You need to learn—this is your job in the family. Joanie and I can’t do it forever,” Letta snapped.
“Can I go with her?” Sabina asked quietly.
“Fine.” Letta rolled her eyes. “Just get a move on before I start to get upset.” Cello searched for any sign of suspicion in Letta’s face or hands—when she was saving up a punishment, she flicked her fingernails against one another, like she was counting up how may minutes of suffering you were going to get.
Cello and the sisters hiked to a spill of land that Sil had chosen for the new plot. Marcela fell onto the grass and rested an arm across her eyes. Sabina waited, halfway between Cello’s searching, tensed form and Marcela’s collapsed one.
“Over here,” Cello spoke, waving toward a line of trees. “We’ll start here, and I’ll mark it off. Sabina, go get the mower and drive it up to that hill.” It was true, what Letta had said about each new planting needing a woman to turn the soil. If it wasn’t done, the Vine wouldn’t grow.
Sabina nodded, and nudged Marcela with her foot. “Are you alright?”
“Go ahead,” Marcela said, her arm still over her face. “I just need a minute.”
“Are you crying? Why?”
“I’m not crying. I just need a minute, I said.”
“Alright.” Sabina had always been the quiet one, the patient and obedient one; she saw and understood everything. Cello knew what Sabina saw—that Marcela’s mind swelled with anger and worry. Letta hadn’t given her this responsibility before, and Cello couldn’t imagine what it would do to her. He was relieved not to know.
“It’s okay, Mar. Rest a little—and don’t worry, Cello won’t mind that you’re being lazy,” Sabina said, giving Cello a soft, apologetic glance.
“Like I give two shits about what Cello thinks.” Marcela rolled onto her stomach, hiding her face. “Why doesn’t Letta make Joanie do it? She took care of all of the plots before the baby.”
“You know the baby takes a lot out of her. It’ll be okay. It’s only one plot, and you’re so strong. I’ll be right back.” Sabina gave Marcela another playful tap with her foot, and ran out into the warming day to collect Sil’s mower.