Story Shadows on Crescent Lake

Chapter 25​



January was better than November and December had been. Don’t get me wrong, I loved church, loved the holidays, but November and December had been a bit much even for an energetic little kid like I was then. There was only one field trip in January, and it was to the UF Family Farm[1]. That was a lot more fun for me than it was for some of the kids and the older ones positively rolled their eyes at what they considered a baby field trip.

I got to milk a cow. I was the only kid in my group that would drink it fresh out of the teat. About the only time that Gigi nearly threw a fit … until the student running the exhibit showed her that while it was raw milk, it had been run through a filter. I’d already seen their sleight of hand and had way too much experience with Thunder and Dad tricking me. I was kinda sorry when Gigi gave me the eye and said I should have asked her first. I didn’t make that mistake again, especially not after the “explanation” she gave me during our evening constitutional that evening. Youch. Gigi didn’t pull the I’m-in-charge-because-I’m-your-grown up thing very often, but when she did it was … effective.

Everything else was work, work, and more work that month. It is only looking back, and having other adults talk about it, that I understand how different it was for a seven-year-old to work like I did. I mean I know they did it in the pioneer days. And I was turning into a tall seven-year-old at that. And even knowing how different my upbringing was, it still doesn’t bother me, but it explains some of the weird looks Gigi and I used to get, even from people at church. Thankfully we didn’t have to deal with people getting in our business, or at least not often.

January was not just the farmers’ markets and Mr. Thad’s store, which was really starting to get noticed by the busses of people that went around to antique stores, quilt stores, and stuff like that. That first January was the month that Gigi took me to the “empty lot” that really wasn’t empty and we picked citrus fruit to add to what we’d earned from the farmers’ markets deliveries. Then she taught me how to preserve citrus fruit[2] the way our grandmother had taught her.

There were both white and ruby red grapefruit, ponderosa and meyer lemons, and all kinds of oranges like cara cara, navel, temple, and one that I particularly enjoyed called a pineapple orange. We sectioned tangerines and clementines, at least the ones we didn’t eat while we were out and about taking care of business. Mr. Thad also gave us calamondins (kinda looked like kumquats), carambolas (star fruit), guavas (if any looked like they weren’t going to last another day), and pomelos[3] that look like a grapefruit but isn’t one. We mostly juiced and sectioned the fruit for canning but then we would take the peel[4] and preserve it, sort of like a candy or stuff that you used in baking.

“You look happy,” I told Gigi on one of our constitutionals.

“I am. Teaching you about the orchard and garden stuff and then how to preserve the food reminds me of being with Grandmary. I miss her and I used to get sad, but now I know she’s still with me in a way because of my memories.”

“It doesn’t make your head hurt?” I asked, a little worried.

“You mean like trying to remember stuff that gives me a headache?”

“Uh huh.”

“No. Memories with Grandmary actually make my head feel better. And it gives me more ideas.”

Thinking about that I asked, “When can we do your ideas?”

She slowed us down and we turned down a street that was mostly a grassy field where the peacocks hang out. That meant she wanted to make sure that no one was listening to her answer. “We might have to use some of my ideas sooner than I thought. Mom and Dad are cutting back on the grocery money even more these next couple of months. Don’t say anything about it. And definitely don’t say anything about going over to Gwen’s house and helping them if they get a couple of deer.”

“You mean what Daniel said about them hunting deer and not to go all Bambi lover or tree hugger or something stupid like that?”

She chuckled. “Daniel better watch his mouth. Gwen is about full up with it. So don’t you pick up his bad habits. Daniel is a young thirteen and Quill is an old twelve. And they’re both about to become an endangered species if they don’t stop irritating their sisters.”

I shrugged. “They’re just stinky boys. Ignore the stinky part and they’re mostly okay.”

That made Gigi laugh but then she got serious again. “Keep your ears open but don’t make it obvious. Dad is up to something. They’re going to Tennessee next month and Dad is a little excited about it even if Mom isn’t. I’m not supposed to know but they keep forgetting about the old floor register between my room and theirs.” She lowered her voice. “And they aren’t really telling Thunder and Uncle Mack about everything they’re doing. Dad has some kind of plan. I don’t know what it is yet. We’re going to need to be careful.”

A little scared I asked, “You … you aren’t asking me to lie to Dad and Thunder are you?”

“No. Absolutely not. I’d never. But … don’t go getting into grown up business either.” She sighed and looked off into the grass that was moving as the peacocks started their strut back to their evening roosts. “Rain, I love Mom and Dad. I always will. But now that I’m getting better, my head isn’t as broken as it used to be, and I don’t always agree with their choices. But because my head was broken, and for so long, I’m not always … believable.”

“Huh?”

“What I mean is people still think my head is completely broken and not just a little broken. Even if I could say something to someone, they might think I am overreacting or getting above myself or something. And that will mean that Dad would have a chance to change plans to avoid … avoid getting caught red handed and it might mean that things would change and … and we wouldn’t be able to be together.”

“No!”

“I know. But I’d do it if I thought you were in danger. Even if Dad’s anger got the better of him Mom wouldn’t allow it … but to keep the peace she might allow someone else to take care of you and … and she might send me away.”

“No!” I said again, getting agitated.

“Settle down. I don’t like that either, but I’d allow it depending on who it was if I thought it was what is best for you.” She sighed. “My head will always be a little broken but even the doctor is helping me to learn to manage the brokenness that is left. I’ll introduce you to her next month at my appointment. I go into her office twice a year, but I have zoom appointments once a month. She’s like a cross between a psychologist and a PA, only she can write the prescriptions I need that my old physical therapist couldn’t.”

“You go to see a doctor? Like … like Mom?”

“No Girly, I’m not sick. I just have deficits from when I … when I received my brain injury.”

“No you don’t.”

“Excuse me?” she asked like I was being sassy.

“Deficits are what the School Counselor kept trying to say I had. I could do everything she said I was lying that I could do like the reading and stuff. I just did them my way and not hers. They kept writing ‘behavioral deficits’ in my records because I wouldn’t play their stupid games. She was the one with behavioral deficits. So I know what deficits are and you don’t have them and you shouldn’t let people say you have them.”

She gave me a small, sad grin. “You can’t always see my deficits Girly. And the ones I have left … well you see how I was when we went to the Space Center.”

I rolled my eyes. “Getting ovenwhelmed because there are too many people making too much noise isn’t a deficit. I don’t like it when the kids bang on the piano at church. For one, they aren’t supposed to because it could make the piano get out of tune. And for two, it makes my brain feel like it is being bit by an alligator turtle. Mr. Thad doesn’t like people to drag their feet when they walk, he said it just makes him feel irritatable. And Mr. Thad is really smart. So you don’t have deficits.”

Whatever she saw on my face made her laugh. She hugged my shoulders and we walked back to the house and even got to see one of the albino peacocks while we were doing it. Looking back, I realize that I only saw things from a young child’s view. To me Gigi was practically perfect. Like the old Mary Poppins character. But she did have deficits left over from her brain injury. They were just small and usually covered up by her medication and it stayed like that for a long time.


[1] Family Day at the Dairy Farm - UF/IFAS Animal Sciences - University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences - UF/IFAS
[2] 12 Ways to Preserve Citrus: Drying, Canning, Fermenting and more!
[3] https://www.marthastewart.com/what-is-pomelo-8777389
[4] https://www.marthastewart.com/313211/candied-citrus-peels
 
Kathy in FL said:

Chapter 25​



January was better than November and December had been. Don’t get me wrong, I loved church, loved the holidays, but November and December had been a bit much even for an energetic little kid like I was then. There was only one field trip in January, and it was to the UF Family Farm[1]. That was a lot more fun for me than it was for some of the kids and the older ones positively rolled their eyes at what they considered a baby field trip.

I got to milk a cow. I was the only kid in my group that would drink it fresh out of the teat. About the only time that Gigi nearly threw a fit … until the student running the exhibit showed her that while it was raw milk, it had been run through a filter. I’d already seen their sleight of hand and had way too much experience with Thunder and Dad tricking me. I was kinda sorry when Gigi gave me the eye and said I should have asked her first. I didn’t make that mistake again, especially not after the “explanation” she gave me during our evening constitutional that evening. Youch. Gigi didn’t pull the I’m-in-charge-because-I’m-your-grown up thing very often, but when she did it was … effective.

Everything else was work, work, and more work that month. It is only looking back, and having other adults talk about it, that I understand how different it was for a seven-year-old to work like I did. I mean I know they did it in the pioneer days. And I was turning into a tall seven-year-old at that. And even knowing how different my upbringing was, it still doesn’t bother me, but it explains some of the weird looks Gigi and I used to get, even from people at church. Thankfully we didn’t have to deal with people getting in our business, or at least not often.

January was not just the farmers’ markets and Mr. Thad’s store, which was really starting to get noticed by the busses of people that went around to antique stores, quilt stores, and stuff like that. That first January was the month that Gigi took me to the “empty lot” that really wasn’t empty and we picked citrus fruit to add to what we’d earned from the farmers’ markets deliveries. Then she taught me how to preserve citrus fruit[2] the way our grandmother had taught her.

There were both white and ruby red grapefruit, ponderosa and meyer lemons, and all kinds of oranges like cara cara, navel, temple, and one that I particularly enjoyed called a pineapple orange. We sectioned tangerines and clementines, at least the ones we didn’t eat while we were out and about taking care of business. Mr. Thad also gave us calamondins (kinda looked like kumquats), carambolas (star fruit), guavas (if any looked like they weren’t going to last another day), and pomelos[3] that look like a grapefruit but isn’t one. We mostly juiced and sectioned the fruit for canning but then we would take the peel[4] and preserve it, sort of like a candy or stuff that you used in baking.

“You look happy,” I told Gigi on one of our constitutionals.

“I am. Teaching you about the orchard and garden stuff and then how to preserve the food reminds me of being with Grandmary. I miss her and I used to get sad, but now I know she’s still with me in a way because of my memories.”

“It doesn’t make your head hurt?” I asked, a little worried.

“You mean like trying to remember stuff that gives me a headache?”

“Uh huh.”

“No. Memories with Grandmary actually make my head feel better. And it gives me more ideas.”

Thinking about that I asked, “When can we do your ideas?”

She slowed us down and we turned down a street that was mostly a grassy field where the peacocks hang out. That meant she wanted to make sure that no one was listening to her answer. “We might have to use some of my ideas sooner than I thought. Mom and Dad are cutting back on the grocery money even more these next couple of months. Don’t say anything about it. And definitely don’t say anything about going over to Gwen’s house and helping them if they get a couple of deer.”

“You mean what Daniel said about them hunting deer and not to go all Bambi lover or tree hugger or something stupid like that?”

She chuckled. “Daniel better watch his mouth. Gwen is about full up with it. So don’t you pick up his bad habits. Daniel is a young thirteen and Quill is an old twelve. And they’re both about to become an endangered species if they don’t stop irritating their sisters.”

I shrugged. “They’re just stinky boys. Ignore the stinky part and they’re mostly okay.”

That made Gigi laugh but then she got serious again. “Keep your ears open but don’t make it obvious. Dad is up to something. They’re going to Tennessee next month and Dad is a little excited about it even if Mom isn’t. I’m not supposed to know but they keep forgetting about the old floor register between my room and theirs.” She lowered her voice. “And they aren’t really telling Thunder and Uncle Mack about everything they’re doing. Dad has some kind of plan. I don’t know what it is yet. We’re going to need to be careful.”

A little scared I asked, “You … you aren’t asking me to lie to Dad and Thunder are you?”

“No. Absolutely not. I’d never. But … don’t go getting into grown up business either.” She sighed and looked off into the grass that was moving as the peacocks started their strut back to their evening roosts. “Rain, I love Mom and Dad. I always will. But now that I’m getting better, my head isn’t as broken as it used to be, and I don’t always agree with their choices. But because my head was broken, and for so long, I’m not always … believable.”

“Huh?”

“What I mean is people still think my head is completely broken and not just a little broken. Even if I could say something to someone, they might think I am overreacting or getting above myself or something. And that will mean that Dad would have a chance to change plans to avoid … avoid getting caught red handed and it might mean that things would change and … and we wouldn’t be able to be together.”

“No!”

“I know. But I’d do it if I thought you were in danger. Even if Dad’s anger got the better of him Mom wouldn’t allow it … but to keep the peace she might allow someone else to take care of you and … and she might send me away.”

“No!” I said again, getting agitated.

“Settle down. I don’t like that either, but I’d allow it depending on who it was if I thought it was what is best for you.” She sighed. “My head will always be a little broken but even the doctor is helping me to learn to manage the brokenness that is left. I’ll introduce you to her next month at my appointment. I go into her office twice a year, but I have zoom appointments once a month. She’s like a cross between a psychologist and a PA, only she can write the prescriptions I need that my old physical therapist couldn’t.”

“You go to see a doctor? Like … like Mom?”

“No Girly, I’m not sick. I just have deficits from when I … when I received my brain injury.”

“No you don’t.”

“Excuse me?” she asked like I was being sassy.

“Deficits are what the School Counselor kept trying to say I had. I could do everything she said I was lying that I could do like the reading and stuff. I just did them my way and not hers. They kept writing ‘behavioral deficits’ in my records because I wouldn’t play their stupid games. She was the one with behavioral deficits. So I know what deficits are and you don’t have them and you shouldn’t let people say you have them.”

She gave me a small, sad grin. “You can’t always see my deficits Girly. And the ones I have left … well you see how I was when we went to the Space Center.”

I rolled my eyes. “Getting ovenwhelmed because there are too many people making too much noise isn’t a deficit. I don’t like it when the kids bang on the piano at church. For one, they aren’t supposed to because it could make the piano get out of tune. And for two, it makes my brain feel like it is being bit by an alligator turtle. Mr. Thad doesn’t like people to drag their feet when they walk, he said it just makes him feel irritatable. And Mr. Thad is really smart. So you don’t have deficits.”

Whatever she saw on my face made her laugh. She hugged my shoulders and we walked back to the house and even got to see one of the albino peacocks while we were doing it. Looking back, I realize that I only saw things from a young child’s view. To me Gigi was practically perfect. Like the old Mary Poppins character. But she did have deficits left over from her brain injury. They were just small and usually covered up by her medication and it stayed like that for a long time.


[1] Family Day at the Dairy Farm - UF/IFAS Animal Sciences - University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences - UF/IFAS
[2] 12 Ways to Preserve Citrus: Drying, Canning, Fermenting and more!
[3] https://www.marthastewart.com/what-is-pomelo-8777389
[4] https://www.marthastewart.com/313211/candied-citrus-peels
Click to expand...
Thanks so much…these characters you are “building” are turning into some of my favorites !!!
 

Chapter 26​


That February is when life started changing again. For all of us. Some of it happened quickly. Most of the changes took a lot longer to create their full impacts.

Rather than slowing down, the Farmers Markets picked up. And as a result, so did our “take home pay” from them since we got paid on percentages. Citrus was still a big thing … calamondin, carambola, grapefruit (Flame Red, Ruby Red, White), guava, lemons (meyer and ponderosa), oranges (cara-cara, honeybell, navel, pineapple and temple), papaya, pomelo, and tangerines. Then there were the beans (pole and bush) which added a lot of variety to our meals that had disappeared in November, December, and January because Uncle Beau had issues with beans of any kind. He wasn’t real fond of the squash we brought home so we kept it for us and sometimes for Aunt Anne when Uncle Beau had a men’s fellowship where he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Everyone liked the sweet corn that we brought in, but Uncle Beau preferred it on the cob and Aunt Anne preferred it off. That was a tightrope to walk.

Everyone also liked the tomatoes coming in. Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau preferred them fresh at every meal, even breakfast. And while I could eat a tomato the way some people eat apples, Gigi had us preserving them lotsa different ways but mostly in juice, paste, and sauces. Cabbage and broccoli got added to our meals and preservation stuff, but only when Uncle Beau wasn’t around because he had the same problem with those two things as he had with the beans.

Sometimes Aunt Anne would join us when Gigi and I would have a platter of fresh veggies and dip for our lunch and those were the best times. Aunt Anne seemed to be in charity with us and neither of them had that awful dark sparkling energy they would have sometimes if they spent too much time together. But it was also something we all guarded against doing because Uncle Beau would think he was being funny and say hurtful things like “rabbit food” and then make a rabbit face at Gigi. Sometimes Uncle Beau was more stinky boy than he was grown up man. I never have figured out if that was on purpose or not. He acted jealous if Aunt Anne seemed to soften too much to Gigi or if Gigi spent too much of her time and energy on anyone but him. I didn’t count. In his mind I was mostly a responsibility they had pawned off on Gigi for Gigi to prove that “right” was raising me like they thought was right. Just one more thing I understand better now but that I understood some even back then.

What Uncle Beau really, really liked were the potatoes and peanuts we brought in, and he said maybe we should only take those things in pay. Thankfully Gigi said that they were so valuable that Mr. Thad had to weigh them out, so he made enough profit to keep going. Even I knew that was a clanker, but Uncle Beau swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. That was the only time that I knew for sure that Aunt Anne knew some things that Gigi said were “exaggerated”.

“You want to watch how thick you are laying it on Daughter.”

Gigi looked at Aunt Anne and responded calmly, “Yes, ma’am.”

“And I better not catch you doing that to me,” she added.

“No ma’am.”

I once heard the pastor say, “There are none so blind that will not see.” I think that kinda fits Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau to a T even if some people might call it a bit sacrilegious. It did back then anyway. Life has probably knocked their blinders off at least some but I’m not too sure I care. There’s just such a thing as being a day late and a dollar short by waiting too long. And in my heart, they waited way too long.

Speaking of sight and seeing, Daniel had to sit in the shade under a beach umbrella during one of our home school field trips to a local u-pick strawberry farm. I noticed that all his sisters and Quill kept glancing over at him. And I noticed Gigi hugging Gwen where they thought no one could see them. I recognized the signs. They’d done that a lot with Mom, and it was freaking me out to see it again. I didn’t like being freaked out and walked right up to him, plopped down, and asked him right off what was wrong.

Daniel answered, “I got an eye infection.”

“That why your eyes are wrapped up and under those sunglasses?”

“Yeah.”

“When can you take them off?”

“Don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“’Cause.”

“’Cause why?”

“Go away Rain.”

“No.”

He sighed deeply and then surprised me by leaning over and starting to cry. “Daniel?!”

“I’m not gonna be able to see. The infection did stuff to my eye nerves.”

I stopped then put my hand on him and he jumped. I asked, “Are they sure?”

“Yeah. I’m already having a lot of trouble with my eyes being sore and everything is blurry. They say it will always be blurry. They said I’ll be legally blind.”

“Uh … why? Does it mean you have to go to family court or something?”

Suddenly he wasn’t crying, it was kinda laughing. That’s when Quill showed up. “Stop it Rain.”

Only before anything coming out of my mouth Daniel said, “She ain’t bothering me.”

“Mom says you aren’t supposed to get upset.”

He snorted and it was kinda gross because snot came out of his nose. “Ew. Here,” I said putting a couple of napkins against his hand from the picnic lunch we are supposed to have. “Yuck.”

Daniel asked, “You wanna wipe my nose?”

“Gross. No!”

He laughed again then stopped but was still not as upset as he had been a minute ago. “Rain, go help Quill get me some scrawberries. My head hurts and I’m gonna lay down for a sec. ‘K?”

“Okay. Are you still going to teach me how to put the crickets on my hook next field trip to the lake?”

“Rain … I … I won’t be able to see good enough.”

“Why not? You taught me to fish in the dark when your dad took us out on his bass boat. The flashlight didn’t work and you could still do it faster than Quill.”

“Hey!” Quill yelped.

“Well, he did,” I said back.

After a moment Daniel said, “Mebbe. Depends on if you can be quiet for more than two seconds at a time.”

“Please?” I wheedled.

“I said mebbe. Go get me some scrawberries. I think I might be hungry when it is lunch time.”

“Oh fine,” I said and stood up and followed Quill back out into the sun and heat.

After a minute of doing what Daniel had asked, Quill said, “You ain’t asked.”

“About what?”

“About … about …”

Rather than listen to his painful and pain-filled stuttering I asked, “What does legal blind mean? I asked Daniel if it meant he had to go to family court about it but all he did was laugh at me.”

After a stunned second he snorted and said, “You’re a dork. No, and it is legally blind. It means his eyesight is going to be so bad he might as well be blind. He won’t be able to drive like ever and stuff like that. He won’t be able to read.”

“Daniel doesn’t like to read anyway. Someone can read to him like they do now or he can listen to an audiobook. Or I read a book on someone called Helen Keller and she read with her fingers … briggs or something.”

“Braille. Geez.”

“Yeah braille. These bumps on paper that’s like a secret code.”

“Yeah, mom and dad talked about it, but it costs money for a special school on that stuff and … and we ain’t got it right now.”

“Lots of people don’t have money right now. I’ll ask Gigi to help me look something up. Maybe he and I can learn at the same time.”

Quill looked at me and said, “You are so weird. But yeah, maybe. Mom and Gram are worried about Daniel going into a decline.”

“So we don’t let him go into a decline.”

He shrugged. “Easier said than done.”

“Yeah, they used to say that about Mom too but … it worked a lot of the time. At least until she got so sick she had to go to the hospital. Then she did go into one of them decline things. Dad said she wouldn’t have if they had let her stay home with us. But they said she had to be in the hospital for the pain medication.” A little ferociously I said, “But Daniel isn’t like that. He can stay home with your family. And I know if I ask Gigi we’ll help him not go into a decline. Ever.”

Quill looked at me and said, “You better watch popping off like that. People might hear.”

“I don’t care. Daniel is my friend.”

“Yeah well … don’t bruise the scrawberries. They get all moldy and turn to mush.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah. And … the reason why Daniel … it’s … um … look he got a cold that caused an infection in his sinuses. It was called cell … cell … cellulitis. That’s close anyway. It infected all up in his eyes and damaged his eye nerve. Now it doesn’t work right.”

“He said he’ll be able to see light and dark.”

“Yeah. They hope so anyway. I heard Mom and Dad talking. The doctor told them that he might have 20/200 vision or it could go to 20/400.”

“That’s bad?”

“It means they can’t even fix his eyes with regular glasses, and maybe not with special glasses depending on how bad it gets. He might be able to see some things with like a telescope or something, but no one knows for sure yet. He won’t be able to play football or do anything.”

“He can fish.”

“Okay, maybe he can fish.”

“He can tie his shoelaces.”

“Rain, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

He looked at me a minute then said, “You’re right. He’ll be able to do things. He just won’t be able to do some things like he could before.”

“So we figure out what he can do and don’t worry about what he can’t do until we figure out how to help him do them.” I was thinking of the hindsight I heard about with Dana and while Daniel wasn’t Dana, I knew treating him too fragile would make things harder, not better.

It turned out that Daniel’s eyesight settled at 20/300 and despite that, he could do lots of things, and some things better than other people could. Like he learned to use his father’s radio equipment up at the fish hatchery and at home. His hearing and listening skills got lots better. And then there was Gator … a stray puppy that had got dumped in their woodlot that decided it was his mission in life to boss Daniel around and not let him go walking without his majesty’s permission and directions. Turns out that the pastor might have been right … God doesn’t allow something to leave our life without replacing it with something else. At least that was true for Daniel.

In addition to fishing (and Daniel taught me to put on worms, not crickets, both of which I thought disgusting at the time) and picking strawberries, we went back to St. Augustine to the Alligator Farm, went to Port Canaveral for the Chowder Cook Off, and went to Santa Fe College for their teaching zoo home school day. Keeping busy meant none of us got sad for too long about Daniel’s life changing though I know Quill felt it worse than most everyone except for his mom and dad. It sometimes meant Gigi would get in an overprotective tail spin about something happening to me, but was able to keep it under control enough that other people didn’t see it. And it meant we got to help Daniel to start adjusting to his new reality by making sure there were things he could do, not just a long list of things he could no longer do.

That’s what family is supposed to be about, not what I eventually learned that Uncle Beau and Aunt Anne were doing.
 

Chapter 27​



“Gigi, what’s wrong? There’s no cars near us,” I asked on an early delivery drive to a farmers market. Gigi was real fritzy that morning and it only got worse. I’d seen her get extra bouncy from too much fun, but this didn’t feel like that.

She answered me after making a face. “We need to talk Girly. Mom and Dad sat me down last night after your bed time and explained … well just told me without the explanation … and …” She cleared her throat. “I want to tell you now, but we need to get this produce delivered. Mr. Thad said it was really important because the Ormond Beach stall is practically empty. And if the stall manager doesn’t show up we have to run this one until it closes at 1 pm. I didn’t expect that on top of the other. Then we still need to come back and help Mr. Thad close down the vintage store and he wanted to know if we would stay after closing to move some new merchandise in.”

“You’re … um … bouncy. And not in a way that looks like fun.”

She gave a laugh that sounded a little emotional and said, “I’m … jittery.”

“Because of Mr. Thad messing with your schedule or because of something Uncle Beau said?”

“Both. But mostly this stuff Dad … and Mom … are pulling. I’d thought better of …” She stopped like she was about to say something she shouldn’t and then started again. “They are making things more difficult and complicated to hide what they are doing. And they showed me paperwork that Uncle Mack signed off on which means he may not really get what is happening, is imagining that it is something that Thunder can handle … but he can’t because he isn’t 18 yet and is kinda clueless even if he is smarter than most people. And here I am and I’m not sure I can say anything because then that would mean …”

I waited for her to finish but she didn’t because we were pulling in and the stall manager wasn’t there and that meant we had to set up, not just deliver. And then the manager never showed up and we didn’t have a cash til – and Mr. Thad was really, really angry because the stall manager wasn’t answering their phone, so we had to run the stall until it closed. Lucky we always carry an extra tablet register with us. Not many people used checks or digi-coins anymore so when we said, “Sorry, cards only today” no one made a fuss.

I got a long lecture from Uncle Beau just because I didn’t know what pennies were back at Christmas. I’d never seen one before. Geez it was totally boring and I had to pretend to find it important. Looking back now I can see it was kinda good information but back then I was just a little kid. I could only live the life the adults had cooked up and in all honesty I still am. The only kind of “hard currency” I’ve ever held in my hands are digi-coins but they’re really just tokens that represent the digital money everyone has used for years. They tried to develop a “currency” for the Evac Zones to use, claiming it proved they were still part of the US, but it didn’t last long because their value was fluid even if the government tried to control prices.

It was nice not having to go to a depository to dump off any physical tokens and get them deposited, especially since it was a Saturday and the guards were always super strict on Saturdays and I would have to sit in a waiting area by myself because no one under the age of 17 were allowed in a depository.

The farmers market was really busy as usual. We actually ran out of produce by noon and Mr. Thad said just to shut down and head back. The market organizers weren’t real happy at us leaving early but we weren’t the only ones that had run out of product. Had the organizers warned the vendors that they’d done some extra advertising along the coast we’d have brought at least a little extra. About the only vendors that had anything left were the big orange and lemon trucks. One of the vendors did save us some limequats and loquats for me helping him to wrangle his stinky boy son who was too little to have good manners and just wanted to play. The weird kid climbed into their big dog kennel they had with them and claimed he was a mono (a monkey) and made an awful racket until I figured out that if I peeled and sectioned an orange he’d shut up when I fed it to him. The big dog that normally sleeps in the kennel rolled over on my feet like she was saying, “I’ve had enough. Your turn, so don’t think you are getting away.”

I explained that to Gigi when she apologized for not being able to rescue me because the market had been so busy. I thought Gigi was going to blow tea through her nose she was trying so hard not to laugh until we got back to the delivery van.

Once we got to the van and got it running and warmed up Gigi said, “Mr. Thad wants us to come right back but … but I’m making a command decision. I say we stop at the rest stop on the way back and … and talk.”

I had butterflies in my stomach and boy am I glad the bathrooms at the rest stop were clean. We finally sat down at a concrete picnic table with our lunch Gigi had made this morning while I got dressed.

We both just kinda looked at the sandwich wraps before Gigi shook herself, said Grace for both of us, and told me to eat while she explained a few things.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“So that’s the way it’s going to be,” Gigi said with the kind of quiet frustration she didn’t normally show.

“But we still live together? I’m not getting packed off.”

“Nope,” she answered with firm confidence.

Carefully I asked, “Are you sad about that?” Her mouth was saying one thing, but her face was saying another, and I was still figuring things out.

“Oh. Hey, definitely not. That’s one of the things that I’m worried about if this isn’t handled right. It’s … it’s …”

“That Uncle Beau asked you to lie?”

She made a face. “Yeah. Even though he is calling it omitting details to protect everyone, including keeping Uncle Mack from being stressed considering where he is at and what is going on …”

“What does that mean?” I asked, alarmed.

“Grown up stuff,” she said quickly. “Uncle Mack has a special job and some of those boys he looks after can get rowdy.”

“Oh. Yeah. He used to get calls at night all the time. Aunt Diane didn’t like it.”

“Yep. Probably the same thing,” she said. And it is one of the only times I know that Gigi just flat out lied to me. And part of me is glad even given what eventually happened. “Can you handle this, Girly? I’m not saying I agree with what Dad is doing but I’m not sure how to stop him without making a lot of worse things happen which could make it impossible for us to stay together.”

I know some people might think of that as emotional blackmail, but Gigi’s brain didn’t work like that. She literally saw two choices for us. We could go along with what her parents planned, or at least go along superficially while making our own plans or the other path was to not go along with it and we wound up some place else that meant our plans were also broken. And along either path there were things that would happen. Path 1 things would be unpleasant. Path 2 things would be even more unpleasant. She chose Path 1. It might have been the path of least resistance. It might have been the path that served us best in the long run. But she was still terribly uncomfortable with that choice and felt guilty about it.

Here’s basically how I’ve always understood things. I was living with Gigi in her parents’ home which had direct access to the lake but no boat dock. Nice looking house but not one of the historical homes as it was built in the ‘00s. The lot it sits on is one of the smaller ones in the neighborhood. Not much scope for any kind of landscaping beyond the live oaks and crepe myrtle trees that were already there.

If you looked at that house there was a house to the right of it that was owned by people that my aunt and uncle “did not associate with” as they’d been part of some church schism years earlier. The prejudices ran deep on both sides. A tall fence would have been put up but the city said no so the neighbors planted bamboo that nearly ran down to the concrete bulkhead at the lake’s edge. That was a problem because the bamboo tried to spread all over the place and the roots would occasionally clog up the bulkhead drains and tear up the filter cloth that prevented the yard from eroding (being washed out) through the bulkhead. The house had a boat dock, but it wasn’t in the greatest shape right up until the house was put on the market to be sold. The house was part of the mid-century architecture boom in the area rather than the Victorians that make up the majority of the historic preservation houses. The oldest house was built in 1877 and the others like that were built into the early 1900s. One of the things that always “miffed” my aunt and uncle is that this house was just inside the historic district, and the city had left their house out … on purpose and with prejudice apparently.

To the right of that house was the large “empty lot” that our grandparents owned but which was in a Trust for Gigi (and her brother that wasn’t around). It is one of the reasons why the lot hadn’t been sold for development; anything built on that lot would have to conform to houses in the historic district and no one built like that anymore.

To the right of the lot is the little old house that had belonged to our grandparents, but which was in the same Trust as the empty lot. It wasn’t much to look at in my opinion, but it provided some income because the lawyers for the trust rented it out through a short-term rental company because it had a boat dock and direct access to the lake. It didn’t get rented out a lot, but it paid the taxes and the general repairs and maintenance on the property and the lot.

The house to the right of it was one of the really old houses in the neighborhood but it was in bad shape and no one lived there, it was used by the family that owned it as a catch-all for the family’s junk. It needed major repairs, but they couldn’t get the permits to do it from the city because it had to comply with the historic district restrictions. I knew this from listening to Mr. Thad who at one time had considered buying it so he’d have some place closer to the store to act as a warehouse for antiques and stuff.

There were other houses and businesses of course, like the Three Bananas restaurant and the BnB’s on Main and Summit Streets, but those are the places that concern what was in Uncle Beau’s plan.

First off is how they’d done Gigi. Uncle Beau and Aunt Anne thought that the lawyers that administered Gigi’s property Trust from our grandparents were in complete control of it, that what was inside the Trust was irrevocable and barely paying for itself from repairs and maintenance and legal fees, that Gigi wouldn’t receive anything from it for years if ever because they couldn’t access the Trust. They were correct about the Trust being irrevocable. What they were wrong about was the Trust barely breaking even. The problem is that Uncle Beau had Gigi declared incompetent to handle her own affairs, something called a conservatorship. The Trust law firm shut down communication with Uncle Beau because they hadn’t been properly notified of the conservatorship proceedings so they could participate and their recommendations be given. You wouldn’t think they’d be able to get away with this but turns out the lawyer is the husband of a friend that stuck by Gigi even when she was at her lowest and that also believed that the conservatorship was bogus. They were saving the money inside the Trust for her until she was ready to break the conservatorship and regain control of things.

What Uncle Beau and Aunt Anne did wind up with control of was Gigi’s Medical Trust that had been created when the insurance company had to fork over a lot of money to stop further legal action by my aunt and uncle on Gigi’s behalf because them delaying approval of recommended medical procedures is at least in part why Gigi was like she was. Gigi was supposed to have a guardian ad litem but the court wound up awarding legal control to her parents. Most of the medical trust was used up to take care of Gigi but after some point everyone decided Gigi was as good as she was ever going to get and the Trust was only for “maintenance” and to pay for what the insurance didn’t, including her medication. Everything else was remitted to her parents for legal fees and for taking care of her.

Whew, this is a lot more complicated than I planned on explaining. But if I don’t explain it no one will see how patient and kind Gigi was to me and how she tried so hard to do the right thing when she could have run around being mad and frustrated all the time. Besides there isn’t much more to it.

What Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau had been up to in Georgia was they were looking for land where they could move to live life in a compound like Uncle Beau grew up in where their little church was the center and everyone that lived around it was related somehow and took care of each other. Only they couldn’t find anything like that in Georgia that everyone was satisfied with and that was affordable to buy into.

Then they started looking in Tennessee and in January they found a large commercial farm for sale that was big enough for their purposes even though it wasn’t really a town like Uncle Beau had grown up in. Being older none of the people – mostly from Uncle Beau’s old church – really wanted to run farms like they and their parents used to so a house on a couple of acres surrounding a “main street” where their church and a couple of “stores” was just fine for their purposes. There were about twenty-five families groups that formed a compact or something like the pilgrims did. Each family group bought in, and they were going to have enough to pay cash for the land and build a community bank to pay for the other improvements they were going to make. And if you think that sounds like a cult, well yeah, kinda, though I never said it aloud for anyone to hear, not even Gigi.

Now here’s the part that gets a little complicated again and sounds like musical chairs. As I eventually wound up understanding it, Uncle Beau didn’t want to bring Gigi to live in TN, but Aunt Anne did. She’d already lost her son and didn’t want to lose her daughter despite her daughter being different than she used to be. The disagreement never really became loud, but it did cause a coldness from Uncle Beau because he knew in a part of himself that in the end, he would lose the battle. Except the war changed that. I don’t think it is that Uncle Beau didn’t love Gigi but that the past and his part in it and a bunch of other psychobabble had him rationalizing that it would eventually be time to let Gigi “fly the nest” and “regain her independence”. But the war got in the way of that too. And that’s what makes me angry. He could have acted sooner only he let time and inaction do what he was too big of a coward to do.

Money was tight. The economy was like Gigi’s little three wheeled truck when it was struggling on a cold morning. People didn’t shop at the farmers markets and the vintage store because they had extra money, but because it was cheaper. And that is kinda one of the reasons why my aunt and uncle and their “family” chose Tennessee instead of Georgia.

Not taking a mortgage on the property made for a good price as it was an all-cash deal. But using all their cash made other things difficult, including the fact they were one of the families that would be building rather than just pulling a trailer to the land. Then Uncle Beau and his brother came up with an idea. My Trust would buy the house to the right of their old house in Crescent City. It would be in my name. It would be an investment to keep from having to pay a high amount of taxes where Dad had sold our old house. That’s why Dad approved the purchase, and why Thunder didn’t question it. They just didn’t know the true motivation.

Uncle Beau decided that Gigi and I would move to that house while they put their old house on the market and they’d take the money from that sale and take care of their house up in Tennessee which Dad and Thunder didn’t know about. In fact, no one was to know. Anyone that asked where Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau were, we were to say they were helping get a new church started in a community that desperately needed one.

Confused yet? I guess I take it for granted since I lived through it, but I guess one day I’ll have to eventually prove all this stuff so I’m recording it here and now to go with all the papers that Gigi put in a box for me to have. I mean a lot of the musical chair stuff is true … the taxes, the starting a church, all that stuff. It is just the motivation behind it that is not as true as Uncle Beau wanted people to think
 

Chapter 28​


It would be easier to just leave it there and keep going but Gigi insisted on me knowing some other stuff, like she was confessing or something. Gigi had a lot more digi tokens and even a whole bank account that her parents never knew about. She had a whole ‘nother place she kept stuff too. Before her brain injury she stripped our grandparents’ old house of all the antiques, antique fixtures, tiffany glass windows, and all the contents that had been left after the rest of the family took what they wanted which wasn’t much because none of them really knew what was in the house after Grandfather passed and our grandmother wound up in a nursing home (just down the street) because she had a bad stroke. Mom wasn’t part of that, and the lawyers moved in before the relatives could move too much stuff out.

The lawyers said the place had been cleaned out so it could be rented out. And Gigi confessed that she remembers doing it but can’t really remember all the reasons why she did it the way she did it. She’d even forgotten what she did until she found a diary she’d hidden with one of Quill’s aunts for safekeeping while some other stuff was going on. And then Bruce gave her a brain injury and went to prison for that, and other stuff the detectives found out about. What people forget, or never knew, is that Gigi and Bruce were married, only they never got a divorce like people assumed. The papers were filled out but never filed for some reason or other that had to do with it being easier for Gigi to claim any income he made after he got out of prison. Something like that anyway. Even her parents who had started the process on her behalf didn’t realize it had never been filed or they would have probably gone after Bruce’s stuff too. The Trust lawyer took care of everything and he had explained to Gigi that he was protecting her because if she and Bruce divorced before some stuff was worked out that Gigi would be financially vulnerable, like for retirement and stuff. Only stuff never did get worked out, Bruce got killed over in foreign lands, and Gigi started collecting survivor benefits as his wife (that her parents didn’t know about) and she legally inherited all his stuff though it happened a little further down the timeline. I’ll get to that when it is time.

All that went on right under her parents’ noses and I guess she’d been able to carry that load until I came along and Uncle Beau and Aunt Anne started making their moves. She cried and shook a little bit that night after she’d finally gotten all of it out.

“Gigi, it’s all right,” I told her patting her shoulder.

“I never meant for you to get wound up in this Girly. I thought I could protect you. I never thought that they’d do what they have.”

I patted her shoulder again and said, “But we’ll be together, right?”

She stopped and looked at me and sniffled. “Yes. For as long as you want me.”

“That’s forever so we don’t have to worry about that. And … and like you said, Thunder is still not a for real grown up and can’t do anything about some of this. And Dad gave his permission for them to buy that house. We … um … just have to work with what we get handed. That’s what the Pastor said back when people were talking about Daniel’s eyes. So what looks like a bad thing could turn into a blessing or something if we just let it.”

She grabbed me in a tight hug like she would sometimes do if no one was looking and Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau had left early in the morning to head to Tennessee to start tying some things down.

That was a mess to try and absorb even with Gigi helping by explaining things. That Saturday night zoom call Dad was there for real and not just as a video. He seemed thankful that Gigi had “already explained things to me”. Thunder didn’t look like he quite knew what to make of it, but he was going by what Dad said. Besides he was getting into some really hard coursework at school. He’d meant to come visit me during Spring Break but turns out he got a job working for one of his professors that was also a doctor in a local emergency clinic and Thunder was going to be allowed to do something called “Independent Coursework” that would help him get even further ahead than he already was for somebody his age.

“I already know I’ll get a break in June, and we’ll do the birthday thing,” he said after Dad had to go so someone else could use a “secure line”.

“What about Dad?”

“Er … well … about that. Dad is getting moved to another duty station, but it won’t be back here in the States like we all thought. He’s already talked to Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau so you’ll for sure get to stay with them and Gigi. Um … you aren’t going to cry are you?”

Part of me felt like it but mostly it was because I didn’t get to see or talk to Dad very much. “Will I ever get to live with Dad anymore? I know you have to keep going to school to be a doctor and it is going to take a long time but … but …”

“I know Rain. I miss Dad too. Things are just … complicated.”

“Because he does special stuff in the military.”

Quickly my brother asked, “You don’t talk about that stuff to people do you? No one has asked?”

“Why would anyone ask? Besides they don’t know. People know that Mom went to Heaven. They know I have a big brother that is lots older than me. Most people just don’t act like I have a Dad. I don’t say anything the same way you don’t explain about Dana. It’s private family stuff.”

He relaxed. “That’s a good way to look at it. It’s private family stuff and no one’s business. But you know Dad loves and misses us and stuff, right?”

“I know.” But he also understood that just because I knew that it didn’t still make me sad.

“Hey, guess what?”

“What?”

“I told my lab partner my seven-year-old sister can put a worm on a hook all by herself and he barfed.”

“He did not,” I said outraged and distracted just like he had planned.

“Did too. I showed the class the vid of you doing it and a couple of the girls gakked … er, got sick to their stomach and gagged.”

A little suspicious I said, “I thought you went to school with smart kids that want to be doctors like you. If they’re gonna get sick just from a little worm I bet they hurl their Cheetos if you show them a picture of me cleaning a fish or cutting up a chicken.”

He laughed and agreed. And things were okay again. Not perfect. Not really happy. But they were okay. I figured I was still better off than a lot of kids, like the ones that went to the church that lived with their grandparents most of the time because their parents didn’t have what it took to be a full-time parent.

I didn’t have a lot of time to feel sorry for myself or worry about things I couldn’t change. Even though the Snow Birds were starting to head back to wherever they live during the summer, the farmers markets weren’t slowing down as expected. In fact, they added one right in our own town. It was small, it only happened on Wednesday afternoons, but it usually drew a pretty good crowd so that was one more we had to add to our list despite it nearly interfering with guitar lessons.

About the only relief we got were two field trips that month. One to the St. Augustine Lion Seafood Festival which was nearly work because Mr. Thad was running a fresh juice stand that we had to bring the produce for. The other was to the Palatka Library Sale where we found different kinds of books like How to Forage for Wild Foods Without Dying, The Forager’s Handbook, Cold Canning, How to Forage Safely and Responsibly, The Modern Forager’s Cookbook, The Homesteader’s Herbal Companion and lots of books about Florida specifically including gardening, history, foraging in Florida, and that sort of thing.

Gigi said, “I can’t believe they aren’t going to keep these in the library anymore. And they hardly have any damage, like I’m getting them right from the bookstore.”

“What’s foraging?”

“One of the projects I want us to do. Mom and Dad are getting too tight on the food budget. It makes no sense in my opinion. Something has gotta be going on. Either the house they wanna build is more expensive than they thought, or they’ve had to buy into another community project. At least Dad isn’t asking for every jot and tittle on the receipts, on the amounts, and he still manages to complain about that, and just listen to me run my mouth … no don’t listen, it’s a terrible example so don’t repeat it. ‘K?”

It was one of Gigi’s “hyper” days and all I could do was hang on and stay on my feet or get dragged along. I did hear about how we needed to start packing up and getting the house cleaned up so it could be put on the market … the house she’d grown up in which made her sad but she was growing okay with it because we had plans, only I didn’t understand what the plans we were supposed to have were.

“So where are we going to live?”

“The new house, your house, but it needs serious renovation. Or it needs all the renovations the previous owners started to be completed. I know how to do a lot of what we need to do, or mostly remember and some of these books will help me to remember the rest of the way. That’s what Bruce did, he worked with his father’s general contracting business.” She anticipated my next question by explaining, “General contractors, at least the kind I’m talking about, work on houses and buildings and things like that. They fix things like plumbing and electrical stuff, paint, change out flooring, renovate bathrooms, just all sorts of jobs. One of the reasons the people had to put the house on the market is because the bank was foreclosing on them. They put way too much money into a major house renovation and remodel and couldn’t pay the second mortgage they took out to do it.”

Nope, at the time none of that made sense to my seven-year-old self but I knew that some of it was good and some of it wasn’t and none of it really mattered or changed the things that Uncle Beau was doing to turn my life more complicated with more work.
 

Chapter 29​



In April Uncle Beau and Aunt Anne kinda freaked us out by showing up in an RV. It was used, it wasn’t big, but they planned on driving it to Tennessee to live in while their new house was being built. Gigi eventually learned by overhearing my aunt and uncle talking at night when they didn’t think anyone could hear them that the Tennessee house was a “downsize” for them. It was only two bedrooms, but it was made of brick with a porch that wrapped around three sides of the house to make it seem like it was bigger. It had a wood fireplace, a nice living room, and a kitchen that Aunt Anne wished was bigger but accepted that since she’d only be cooking for Uncle Bear it would have to do. And when Gigi visited.

That part upset Gigi for nearly a week and she wasn’t doing too well. She started to understand that no matter what Aunt Anne wanted, Uncle Beau wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Gigi living with them. And I was upset for Gigi. I knew even though I couldn’t live with Dad and Thunder at least they wanted me to.

“Don’t say anything about it to them … or anyone else either Girly. I … I know it is for the best. I’ll never have a life if I don’t get out from under them. This is … this is really providential. And it keeps us together.” Saying that didn’t stop her from being sad. Looking back, I now know that it was one of her first truly depressive episodes but keeping busy helped her not to swing too wildly. So did talking to her doctor and taking her medication.

Another thing I realize looking back, now that I’m forcing myself to, Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau were struggling to keep up appearances. How they thought they were going to keep pulling it off I’m pretty sure I don’t know. They were keeping their “2nd Home” in Tennessee a secret, from their friends in Crescent City. They weren’t giving Dad and Thunder the full story either. We weren’t supposed to give anyone any information, not even if they asked a direct question. It felt like lying but they simply said it was no one’s business.

They decided not to put the house on the market yet because they didn’t have any place to put their stuff. And because they were “downsizing” they needed to go through things to see what they were going to keep. Gigi and I started moving our stuff over into the new house but we wouldn’t be living there yet. Couldn’t live there yet because the new house wasn’t livable. And Gigi got sneaky and covered up some of the completed renovations and the renovations in progress so her parents didn’t see them. They had bought the house without even going in it, had let the realtor convince Dad it was a “bargain” and “up to new codes”. Uncle Beau said he wouldn’t be going into that devil’s house until Aunt Anne hushed him with, “Little pitchers have big handles.” What she meant was that I might overhear something and run my mouth over it. I played dumb which was easy to do because I still didn’t really understand what was going on. I just knew Gigi and I had plans even though I didn’t completely understand what those plans were.

I know I keep using that phrase, but it is the truth. I was seven years old and while I might have been an old seven in some respects, I was still my age, and some things were still beyond my understanding. But I trusted Gigi and she protected me even though someone else might not see it quite that way.

April, May, and June of that year was chaotic. In addition to all our other work we were deep cleaning the old house, going through the attic and garage, and moving our stuff to the new house, except for our beds and our daily essentials. Uncle Beau didn’t want to give up any of his stuff, even the stuff that was just junk. He kept trying to put everything else into the get rid of pile even when it was stupid, especially Aunt Anne’s things which caused “minor disagreements”. Then some things he didn’t want to get rid of because he didn’t want anyone else to have it whether it was junk or not. It drove Gigi and I … and Aunt Anne … a little batty. Sometimes we would just box things up, label it donation regardless of what it was so Uncle Beau would stop trying to undecide our decisions.

When Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau weren’t around, and they didn’t come back often, we would move a few things that Gigi had in storage to the new house (from her old life and our grandmother’s things) and Gigi camouflaged everything under the stuff the old owners had left behind including painter’s tarps and some ladders and boxes that used to hold light fixtures and toilets so you couldn’t tell what was actually in them. The one and only time that Aunt Anne looked through a window before Gigi and I covered them, she made a face and told Gigi that it would need to be added to the chore list but not until after she and Uncle Beau got their stuff squared away.

The only break Gigi ever got from playacting were the field trips we took with the home school support group and the Evanston family. My aunt and uncle had stopped really concerning themselves with my education especially after I scored so high on the standardized test I took at the end of May. Otherwise, they never knew what all we got up to. In April we went to the Halifax Oyster Festival in Daytona Beach which could have turned into a scandal except they only thought we were taking produce there for Mr. Thad, which was true, just not the entire story. We also went on a field trip to the Fern Capital of the World[1] which was Pierson. Those ferns have saved a lot of people from starvation as some of them can be eaten[2] before they unfurl [fiddleheads], and they were harvested by locals who knew what they were doing.

In May we went to the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival in Fernandina Beach and the Blue Crab Festival in Palatka with the same excuse … we were driving produce there. We also went to a Sunflower Festival and the Slithering Sensations at Ravine Gardens State Park. In June we had another fishing field trip, and I learned from Daniel that the summer heat drives bass deep and into the underwater vegetation mats. It was best to go fishing early in the morning or late in the evenings if you really wanted to catch anything, and you still have to use lure that went deeper than you would in winter.

One of the kids asked a mean question about how could Daniel tell since he couldn’t see. I almost dumped him out of the boat, but Quill gave me a look to stay out of trouble but I still said, “Don’t be stupid. If you’d pay attention to your own pole you can feel how it pulls when something is on the line.”

“Ooooo Rain you must want to be Daniel’s girlfriend.”

I sighed. “Why do stinky boys have to be so stupid. Yeah, I’m a girl. And yeah, Daniel is my friend. And if you don’t shut up, I’m going to give that big gator over there his morning snack.”

Well the large gator coming up out of the water so close to the pontoon boat freaked the adults out and we headed back to the boat ramp.

I told Daniel, “Sorry. Who are those kids anyway? They talked too much.”

Quill snickered but Daniel only smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Fish weren’t biting anyway and the gator must be why. Mom said your brother is going to meet us in Tallahassee for the Tomato Festival. Is he really?”

“He said he would. He’s going to take the Fast Train there with some people from his class that are going for some science test thingie at the FSU place … the school that is there. He’ll have a day to see me then he has another day of testing then he has to go back to Vanderbilt so the professor doesn’t give his job to someone else. But we’ll have a birthday day. Sorta. Dad won’t be there.”

That’s when Quill said, “I wish I could get a job.” He was trying to distract me from being sad and I let him.

“Ask Mr. Thad.”

“I did. He said he might can find a few days work for me this summer but I’m not old enough to drive yet so I have to figure out how to get there on my own since he can’t stop what he is doing just to drive over and pick me up. Francine lost her job at the grocery store. They’re closing it.” Francine was one of his sisters.

Some of the adults started talking about the store closing and you could tell they were upset. When it closed down there would only be the old Aldi store left unless you went to Palatka and the Aldi had a lot of limits because it was a small store and didn’t have a lot of stuff on the shelves to start with.

That night I asked Gigi, “What happens when the store closes? Uncle Beau was saying we needed to pack up the food for them to take next time.”

“Yeah, Dad’s not thinking. Mom has already said that Dad doesn’t know his way around a kitchen, so we’ll divide things up the way they make the most sense. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“I’m not worried. I know you’ll take care of me. I just mean will we still be able to put food in jars and stuff. We hardly have time to do it like we used to.”

“And that’s gotta stop,” Gigi said, sounding weirdly like Uncle Beau when she did it. “We’ll have more time this summer because whether my parents expect me to or not, they’re going to have to do some of their own packing so we can do what we have to. They’re the ones that want to move to Tennessee. We need to look after us.”

Gigi said it all nice and stuff, but I could tell she was angry too, just trying to be a good daughter and not sound sassy.



[1] Pierson, Florida: Fern Capital of the World
[2] Foraging Fiddlehead Ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris)
 
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