“Who are all the beans for?”
Brent smiled.
I’d never seen him smile like that before. Not on his deck. Not with his coffee. Not at his perfect painted lawn.
He knelt down so he was eye level with the little boy.
“People,” he said.
The little boy considered that.
“Like us?”
“Exactly like you,” Brent said. “Beans are on the left. Nine rows. Pick from the bottom up. The ones near the ground are ready first.”
He handed the little boy the bucket.
And the little boy walked out into my father’s garden, in the fog, and knelt down in the dirt at the end of the first row, and started to pick.
Down at the end of the rows, my father was watching.
He caught my eye across the garden.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
He just lifted his hand, very slightly, the way you’d wave to someone across a crowded room. Then he bent back down to his beans.
