I drove out at five-thirty. I come every Saturday now. Every single one. I bring an extra coffee urn. Mom’s old church urn isn’t big enough anymore.
It was foggy again. That thick, soft late-summer fog that rolls up out of the river valley.
At six o’clock, the headlights started coming down the road.
I counted them.
Twenty-three cars. A record.
People got out carrying their boxes and buckets and bags. Nobody said much. Everybody knew where to go.
I saw June at the squash, of course. Yellow squash. And the little red potatoes, not the big ones.
I saw Tyler at the tomatoes with his girlfriend.
I saw Ashley at the strawberries with her little girl, who ate more than she put in the bag.
And I saw my father, eighty years old, down at the end of the bean rows with his old dented bucket. Moving slower than he used to. Stopping to rest more often. But still there. Still picking. Still on his knees in the dirt.
