Watermelon Summer (4 page)

 

    Spooky.  How had the note-writer known I'd
look up apple sauce before the fruits fell?

 

    I pulled out another book, and another, and used
composition paper fell out of each one, answering my question. 
The mysterious note-writer had simply covered all possible bases,
informing me about where I might choose to begin my studies of
animal behavior (
King Solomon's
Ring
was recommended) or Appalachian history (here, a
library card in my name fell out of the encyclopedia, along with a
hand-drawn map of the three miles between Greensun and town).

 

    After another hour of note-finding, I became
convinced that the mysterious writer was my elusive bio-dad. 
One of the few facts my mother had let slip about my biological
father was that, like her, he was an English major and loved to
read.  And, apparently, to pen enigmatic notes about apple
sauce.

 

    A bit hurt that my father had chosen to greet me
with the written, instead of spoken, word, I decided to get out of
the house and see what the rest of Greensun looked like. 
Surely, my bio-dad wouldn't have left notes in the trees, right?  I
grabbed the half-bushel basket (yes, I'm far too easily swayed by
parental instructions) and let Lucy lead me into the woods
downstream.

 

 

 

    Even though I grew up in a large town next door
to a much-larger city, Mom had taken a little bit of Greensun's
ways across the country with her.  She asked neighbors if she could
harvest the unused fruits from street-side apple trees, then picked from wild
blackberry and raspberry bushes along the side of the road.  My
brother was more likely to refuse to be involved in these shenanagins, especially as we'd gotten older, but I'd found it
inspiring (and delicious) that food grew wild in Seattle's
outskirts.

 

    When Mom was too busy to go wildcrafting with me,
I often walked half a mile to a wooded park, braided my hair, and
pretended to be an Indian.  On the one occasion when my
more-polished cousins came to visit from Massachusetts, I showed
them how to make Robin Hood-style long bows out of willow branches,
then laughed at my relatives for worrying over getting their clothes
dirty.  And when my mother took me along to visit her friend's
farm, I fell in the creek accidentally-on-purpose, caught minnows in
a five-gallon bucket, and brought the tiny fish home to nourish our
cat.

 

    Which is all a long way of explaining that, though I
wasn't a farm girl, I felt right at home at Greensun.  More
recently, A.P. Biology and scholarship
applications had taken over my whimsical relationship with the
outdoors, but the farm called to my younger self.  And since I
had nothing
pressing on my agenda for the next 29 days, I smiled and gave in to
caprice.  A little waterfall with a pool below it tempted me to
skinny dip instead of following one note's directions about washing
up.  ("Rain barrels or creek water perfect for bathing. 
Soap on sink, washtub in shed.  Do NOT use soap in
creek.")  I floated in the water with the sun warming my face
and minnows nibbling sweat off my skin, until Lucy returned from
chasing a squirrel and splashed me out of the creek and back into my
clothes.

 

    By now, my stomach was growling, and I debated
whether I should head back to the house or continue on with my expedition.  But
"June apples should be ripe on the tree down the holler...."  I
turned away from the house and back to the unknown.

 

 

 

    Half a bushel of June apples feels pretty heavy
after a while, so I shifted the container up onto my shoulder as Lucy
and I retraced our steps toward what already felt like home. 
My canine companion was wandering across the hillside above me, as
usual, so I was alone when I stepped out of the trees...and heard
classical music blaring from the farmhouse where I'd left my wallet,
my laptop, and every other belonging I had on this coast.

 

    Looking into the sun, I could make out a slender
figure sitting on a chair in the yard.  And just like that, my
trepidation turned into a quick burst of joy.  Jacob had braved
Hippie Holler to see me!

 

    Before I could analyze my unexpected excitement
(and the vision of blue eyes that filled my mind), the visitor
turned toward me and long hair swung around her head.  Not
Jacob after all.

 

    "You look disappointed, and we haven't
even been introduced yet!" the girl called across the yard, and Lucy
came barreling up from behind me to leap onto her shoulders. 
"I missed you too!" she exclaimed, her attention diverted to rubbing
the dog's ears and pulling a treat out of her back pocket to toss
into the air.  Snap went Lucy's jaws, and then my canine
companion wandered off around the side of the house to eat her snack
in privacy.

 

    Fatal shyness is one of my worst character flaws,
and even though my visitor seemed friendly, I would have just as
soon gone back into the woods and hidden until she went away. 
But I couldn't bring myself to be that rude, so I put on my best
smile and offered her an apple instead, out of which she promptly
took a huge bite.

 

    "These are the best apples for pie!" the girl
exclaimed around a mouthful of green fruit.  "Well, most people
don't think so, but if you like your pie in the mushy, British style, Early Transparents
are the way to go.  What's your favorite apple?"

 

    This turned out to be a trick question since
every variety I knew—the Delicious duo, Macintosh, Granny Smith—made the girl's nose wrinkle up in distaste.  "Virginia
Beauty—now
there's
an
apple worth eating," she proclaimed, then listed the rest of her top
ten, every one of which was new to me.  I should have felt
chastened, but instead I was swept up in the young woman's enthusiasm and
quickly agreed when she suggested picking black raspberries to go
with the apples.  "An apple-raspberry pie is even better than
either by itself," she confided, "and the black raspberries down
here are the tastiest I've ever eaten."

 

    I didn't realize who I was talking to until we'd
picked our way all around the edges of the raspberry patch, climbing
down into the creek to pluck the plumpest berries that overhung the
water.  "I keep meaning to ask Dad if he planted these berries
or if they're wild," she said, stuffing another morsel into her
mouth with purple-stained hands.

 

    "Did your father live here back when it was a
community?" I asked in reply, and the girl stopped picking to look
straight at me.  She raised one eyebrow (a trick I'd practiced
for hours, with no luck), then tossed her head back and laughed.

 

    "You really don't know who I am, do you?" she
replied, and when I shook my head, she wrinkled up her nose as part
of the happiest grin I've ever seen.  Even though I didn't get
the joke, I smiled back, and that's when she told me.  "I'm
Kat!  Your sister!"

 

 

 

    I don't know which gobsmacked me more—that
Stout Kat was standing before me in the flesh, or that she was my
sister.  "half-sister," she hastened to add when I just stood
there in the creek, silently, my mouth probably hanging open and
minnows pecking at my bare toes.  "We have the same father,"
she continued.  "Look, are you alright?  Maybe we should
go sit down."

 

    "So when you lived on the farm....?"  I
didn't even know what I was asking, but Kat was never one to be
tongue-tied, so she filled me in.  We'd returned to the porch
when I couldn't seem to force any words out of my mouth, and Flo had come out of
hiding to twine around my legs and purr her support. 
Meanwhile, this stranger was telling me Stout-Kat tales...from the
first-person point-of-view.

 

    "Before you were born.  Yep, Mom dropped me
off with our dad because she wanted to go to Burning Man and didn't
want a kid in tow.  Can't say that I blame her, although I'm
pretty sure your mom didn't know I existed.  You know there are
more of us, right?"

 

    "More...?"

 

    "More siblings.  Not whole siblings, of
course, but Dad was quite a lady's man.  Serial monogamist, I
call him.  Pretty easy to have so many kids if you don't end up
having to raise any of them.  Before the two of us, he had
another wife with two daughters, and after you he hit the jackpot
and got a son, finally.  Our little brother is sixteen, lives
in Florida, I think—I've never met him."

 

    I couldn't quite figure out how I didn't know
about this huge extended family that—if Kat was right—spanned the entire east coast.  My two oldest sisters lived in
New York state and Maryland, and Kat was from Knoxville. 
("Although lately I've been traveling around all over," she added.)

 

    "And my mom knew about all this?" I asked. 
Sure, Mom was a bit cagey about my bio-dad, but my understanding was
that she was working hard not to say anything negative, rather than
actively hiding three half-sisters and a half-brother.

 

    Kat tilted her head to one side and
frowned.  "Honestly, I'm not sure if your mom knows about all
of us or not.  She definitely knew about me...once I showed up
on her doorstep.  I really liked her, but I also figured I
might have been the reason she left our dad as soon as she popped
you out.  He's already twenty years her senior—having a kid
he'd never told her about might have been the last straw."

 

    Kat had a point—I could easily imagine how
confusing it would be for my mom to have a step-child show up when
she was pregnant with me.  But I couldn't help thinking back to how
alone our little family had felt for much of my childhood,
especially when classmates talked about family reunions and heaping
handfuls of cousins.  Would it have killed Mom to at least let
me talk to my bonus siblings now and then?

 

    "Bonus sibling!  I like it!" Kat crowed when
I muddled my way through an explanation of how I was feeling. 
"But if you want to meet Angela and Jessica, that's pretty
easy.  They're driving down to Tennessee for a reunion
this weekend, and they sent me an invitation.  I'm sure they'd
be thrilled if you came along!"

 

    And that's how I ended up waking on my second
morning in Appalachia in a completely different hayfield,
with possible-cousins running around in all directions outside my tent.