June closed her eyes.
“Every summer, I’d come home from school and she’d have me out there picking beans,” Brent said. “Hours. In the heat. And I’d go to school with dirt under my fingernails that wouldn’t come out no matter how hard I scrubbed. And the kids called me Bean Boy. Every day. For six years. Bean Boy. Because that’s all we ever had in our lunches. Beans. Green beans. Bean sandwiches. Beans and rice.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh. “I swore I’d never pick another bean as long as I lived. I swore I’d never be poor again. I swore I’d never let anybody look at me and see dirt.”
He looked up at the gray house. At the perfect lawn. At the deck.
“So I built that,” he said. “And every morning, I’d go out on that deck with my coffee. And I’d look down at your garden.” He looked at my father. “And all I could see was County Road 9. The trailer. My mom on her knees in the dirt. The empty cupboards. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand looking at it. It was like the whole thing was following me. Like I couldn’t get away from it, no matter how much money I made.”
