A Matter of Trust

By Gary M. King

The stakes are set in the garden like they are each year.  Standing various heights, some are tagged with red plastic; others have blue flags and a small spot is marked with orange.  That spot in the garden belongs to me; it has since childhood.  The plot is much smaller this year than the last.  
My childhood always involved the smells of earth.  Not dirt, but the kind of earth found in a well-tended garden.  Dark brown clay-like soil that stuck to shoes after it rained and made my mother scream when someone walked across her carpet.  She shouted and grabbed me up in her arms as my father smirked and kicked his shoes off on the back porch.  It happened often.  The first memory of my father was him hugging me when I was small, and the smell of earth on him, the smell of sweat underneath.  That warm smell became ingrained with that warm embrace, and I can�t separate the two.  I hugged him today; his arms are a little weaker.  Maybe I have just gotten bigger.  When I was a little girl, he was the strongest person I could imagine.  He wrapped me up in his flannel shirt and carried me across the field and back to the house, telling me he was going to give me a present.
    It was a sign of love and trust between us.  A single tomato plant, running up a stake with an orange tag tied to it.  Specially marked so I would know which one was mine.  He told me I was big enough now to be trusted with taking care of his garden.  I said that I didn�t know how, and he said he would show me.
    He kept that promise, beginning that night.  It was a small plant he gave to me, but I nearly burst with pride.  I learned to water the tomato plant at night, because the water boiled away during the day and made the plant too hot.  Father showed me how he mixed the plant food into the water bucket once a week.  I took a large cup and carefully poured it onto my tomato plant, twice.  He said that might be a bit too much, and a few nights later I found myself pulling at weeds.  They scratched my hands, enough to make me cry.  He bought me a pair of little white work gloves, almost too big for my hands.  I loved the garden, loved the time spent with him.  
    He was proud of me.  He sat smiling with amusement as Mother described how I would rush home off the bus and out into the garden those last few days of school, to check on my tomatoes.  I got mad and said that we learned in school that you shouldn�t make fun of people.  Father laughed again, making me madder, but then he said we were going out for ice cream after dinner.  I forgave him.  He was simply enjoying those short years when I was small; I didn�t realize that back then.  I just wanted to make him proud of me.
I turn away from the window.  My bedroom is the same as it has always been, I guess.  Too big for when I was young, too small now that I am older.  The bed is up on cinderblocks, the gray clashing with the carpet.  The BarbieTM sheets have been replaced by simple dark blue ones.  My dresser still has the mark on it where I kicked it with my boots when I was thirteen and told I couldn�t go somewhere for the first time.  Now the dresser is too small for all my clothes, and the closet is overflowing as well.  Father said he�d trade me out since he doesn�t have as much need for the big dresser in his room.  
    I decide on a flowery gown for simplicity.  I�m not really going far tonight anyway.  Guess it doesn�t matter what I do right now.  I leave a note, telling him I am heading for Jennifer�s and there are some cans of soup in the cabinet.
    Jennifer and I met that same summer, I think.  From pinkie buddies to best friends, she and I have been through it all together.  Her parents were from China, and had moved in a few houses down.  I first saw her outside riding a bicycle in the street.  I guess it was safer back then.  At least I don�t remember much traffic.  Her hair was black and her bicycle was red.  I think it was red.  Hard to remember that long ago when I can�t remember ever not being with her.  I ease my way onto her sofa, holding my stomach.
    �How are you doing?� she asks.
    �Okay so far, but not something I�d recommend anytime soon.  Least the morning sickness is over.�
    �Spending the night?�
    �Nah, just couldn�t take being there anymore.�
    �Has he started bitching or something?�
    �Hasn�t said a word; makes it worse, you know?  He doesn�t trust me anymore.�
    �He is just worried; you�ve both been through too much.�
    �He doesn�t, okay?  Trust me, I know.�
    Jennifer drops the conversation, turning back to the TV with a shake of her head.
    I know she is just worrying about me as well.  I can�t blame her; I worry about me.  I got myself into this mess and I need to be trusted to deal with it.  It�s just that Father has stopped trusting me and that makes my life shit right now.  
    Jennifer offers me a coke as the TV blips up the Friday night movie. Richard and I used to go out Friday nights to the movies, but that was several months ago and in the toilet now.   I suppose I learned some things about people over the past few months.  The past year really, since Mother�s death.
    Throughout grade school the garden was the staple of my summer.  When I finally got big enough to use a shovel, I helped Father turn the dirt over in the spring.  Before that I used a small hand rake to bust up the dirt clods after he had turned over a patch.  If I thought about it, I�d have noticed the soil slowly turning blacker under his care.  He was the expert, and I was just the amateur left in his care
    Mother didn�t mind.  When I got old enough to understand such things, Mother told me that she couldn�t have any more children after me, so they both wanted to spoil me rotten.  Maybe that was some of my problem--
    �You didn�t paying any attention to what I just said, did you?� Jennifer just asked.  
    �Sorry.  I�m just off tonight, I guess.  Hard to believe it will be only a couple weeks now.�
    �Yeah, I suppose.  Freaks me out to have you sitting there.�
    �Shut-up!  I don�t need you jinxing me right now.�
    �I�m messing with you, Carol.  Nah, seriously, haven�t talked to you in a while.  So far, so good?�
    �Yeah, we�re fine.  Not sure how it will be in a few weeks, but we�ll get by.  I guess mostly I�m just tired, and wondering how Father is really going to take things once it all happens.�
     I turn back to the TV, but my thoughts wander again.  I can�t believe he did that.  Why not just tell me that he was mad at me, disappointed in me, what the fuck ever?  I know who taught me to bottle up my anger, since he just kept it all inside him and let it loose like this.  Passive-aggressive bastard.  
     The summer after that first arrived, and my spot was planted like the year before.  Only that year Father said, �there you go,� and pointed to the orange tag.  Another tomato plant, but that year I knew what to do right from the start.  That one grew bigger than the one the year before, and I bragged and pulled Mother out into the garden so she could see.  
    Then came the year I turned ten.  I took care of two tomato plants that year.  Or I tried to.  One grew up strong, but the other never seemed to do as well.  It was a paler shade of green, and never as tall or strong as the other one.  Or any of the others, for that matter.  I remember coming home scared on the last day of school.  I was afraid Father would be mad at me, mad that I had failed him since the tomatoes weren�t growing right.  He walked up to me as I looked at them, and placed his arm around me shoulder.  The only thing he said was �Sometimes they just don�t take to the soil, and there isn�t anything a person can do about it.�  
    I knew that it was fine then.  He wasn�t mad at me; I hadn�t lost his love or trust.  It simply was something that happens sometimes, and trying my best was all I could do.  The next year proved me right, eleven years old and an entire row of tomatoes for me to take care of in the garden.  I felt awesome, big and important and all those other things.  I remember dragging home Jennifer one time just so she could see my plants.  Jennifer just nodded her head and thought I was a freak.
    I leave Jennifer�s house two movies later.  It is just past midnight, and I should have been home sooner.  Father will be lying in bed pretending to sleep and �wake up� when I get in and all that usual shit.  He frustrates me so much sometimes.  Why can�t he just leave me alone, or else tell me when something upsets him?  I come into the house, blocking out one of the cats that makes a bolt for indoors.  I go down the hall to the bathroom and sure enough, Father asks if I had a good time.  
    �I guess so.  I mean, we just sat and watched movies and stuff.  No biggie.�
    �I got some of the garden into the ground today.  Don�t know if you noticed.�
    �I did.�  I close the door as I say this, cutting the conversation.  Damnit.  Why did he have to do that?
    I get into my pajamas and lie down on my bed.  Hard to sleep anymore, and tonight seems to be worse than usual.  My thoughts turn to junior high.  I�ve been living there for the past few years.  
    Mother was diagnosed with cancer my eighth grade year.  She wanted to fight it.  We did everything we could to help her.  I can remember the longs nights with her being sick, and how her hair came out in her brush.  But it was two long years for nothing.  
    She just couldn�t fight anymore.  After all the times she brushed out my hair and put band-aids on my knee after I fell from Jennifer�s bike, she was gone.  I kicked the dresser because I failed to fool her into thinking we were going to the movies with Jennifer�s mother rather than Guy and Robbie from school.  I�ve never figured out how they found out, but we both got grounded for a month.  
    �Carol, honey, are you okay?�  I didn�t hear Father come in, and I can�t quite stop crying now that he is here.
    �I�m fine.  I just�I just miss Mother.  I wish she could be here for all of this.� 
    �I do, too.�  He sat down at the foot of the bed.  I sat up to join him.  �I know it hasn�t been the same, but we have to get by together.�
    �I�m just sorry about all this.  I didn�t think it would turn out like this; I didn�t think at all.�
    �Don�t be so hard on yourself.  You can�t change it now and we�ll just make it by when everything happens.�
    �Me hard on myself?  What about you?  You haven�t done anything since Mother died.  You just mope around.  I know I�ve been a fuck-up lately, but I�m trying to make it up to you now.�
    �Honey, calm down.  You don�t have anything to make up to me.  I know high school has been rough on you and things haven�t been right since your mother left, but we�ll get everything worked out.  Maybe you haven�t made some of the best decisions lately, but I know that you are trying your best.�
    I sit there for a split second in disbelief at his lie.  He doesn�t think I am trying my best.  Otherwise he wouldn�t have taken the tomatoes away from me.  Sure, I don�t have time to watch them as well as I used to, but I still tried.  How dare he say he thinks I�m trying my best?  �Quit lying to me.  I know how you feel.�
    I am already heading for the door before he realizes it.  I am surprised myself that a pregnant girl could move so fast, but I just want to leave him behind with his lies.  I throw my long coat on over my pajamas and grab up my purse.  I ignore Father as I rush out to my car.  I�m sure he was telling me to wait and let him explain or some other bullshit.  I fish out the phone as I pull out of the driveway, calling Jennifer.  I tell her I need to come over, and I�ll explain when I get there.
    Driving up the streets and past the gas stations I make the turn onto Magnolia Street when I see the car lights swerving up ahead.  I don�t have time to panic before the car hits mine.  The air bag deploys; the punch of it shocks me, and I feel a pain deep inside.  I�m not sure when the police and ambulance arrive.  I�m too busy trying to breathe.  The thought crossing my mind as they load me into the ambulance is that everyone was right; labor sucks.
Father is on his way to the hospital already to meet us, I am told.  But all I can really do is try to keep breathing so I have something to scream with.  He is let in with me and Jennifer is left out in the waiting room.  I wish she were in here with me and not him.  I�m lying on a mat now with the doctor and two nurses around me; one is taking care of small cuts on my head and the other is helping the doctor get ready.  And all Father does is wear that same patient look as he stares at me, even as he tells me that everything is going to be okay.
    �Okay?�  I shout.  �This isn�t okay.  You don�t fucking trust me anymore and you think things are going to be okay?�
    I just bit his head clean off.  A nurse is hovering over me, ignoring my words but not the small cuts on my face and arms.  Father is simply standing with his mouth hanging open; finally he says something.
    �Carol, what the Hell are you talking about?  Of course I trust you, honey.�  
    �No, you don�t.  You don�t have to pretend you do; I know you don�t.  I�ll make it up to you, I swear.� I clench my teeth at another contraction.
    �Honey, what are you talking about?�
    �I�m talking about the garden.  I looked out the window.  I saw the tomatoes.  You�ve only given me one this year.  I�m sorry.  I�ll make it up to you.�
    �Honey, I was hoping we could talk about that.   Because you are right; there is only one tomato marked.  And it doesn�t belong to you at all.�
    �What?�  I look up at him, wanting to see anger and only seeing a soft, almost sad smile.
    �It belongs to someone else, but you are going to have to take care of it for a while.  See, honey, it doesn�t belong to my daughter.  It belongs to my granddaughter; I was hoping maybe to make something up to her for losing her grandmother.   I guess I wanted to get my daughter back if she would have me, but she and I haven�t been talking very well lately.  Maybe we can start over, if she wants.�
    Patricia Anne White, named after her late grandmother, was born two weeks early and screaming her head off.  I smile down at her; her tiny face glares up at me, blaming me for how bright it is.  Then she starts screaming again and I know that she is okay.   I take a deep breath, and I feel a knot in my back give way.  She is okay.  I know everything is.