Free Restoring Harmony by Joelle Anthony Page A

extremely good looking, he also had a hardness about him. There were deep lines in his forehead and a flinty look in his eyes. I wasn’t so sure this was the best idea I’d ever had.
    “It’s pretty overgrown,” I said.
    “We’ve had a lot of rain this year for some reason,” the man grumbled.
    “So . . . is it okay if I just keep working for a while?”
    He stared at me for a minute and then walked back to the house. “Do what you have to do,” he said over his shoulder. “But I’m not my sister, and I’m not planning on feeding the whole neighborhood like she used to do, no matter how much you work.”
    I should’ve been disappointed that he wasn’t more enthusiastic about my help, but I wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. Weeding the garden so he’d give us more food was worth a shot. Plus doing something productive helped keep me from breaking down into tears every time I thought about how I couldn’t get back to the farm.
    I knelt onto the ground to weed. After a while, Brandy wandered back to my row and sat down.
    “What’s your daddy’s name?” I asked her.
    She giggled.
    “What?”
    “He’s not my daddy!” she said, laughing. “He’s my uncle.”
    “Oh. Well, what’s his name?”
    “Uncle.”
    Eventually I got the story out of her. At least the story she knew. This was her parents’ house, but they were both in the ground. Not this ground, though, so we shouldn’t be afraid to dig because we’d never dig them up. I thought that maybe Uncle should explain things a little better, but I had a new respect for a guy who’d taken on someone else’s kids too.
    There was no way I was going to live in the U.S. forever, but seeing this garden made me think that maybe, if I really was stuck here for a while, I should try and plant some things at my grandparents’ house. Then I ditched that idea as absurd. We had to get back. It wasn’t a question of if, but how.
    Brandy stayed by my side all morning, and once when I found a worm, I held it up for Michael. He came and took it from me, but then ran off without a word. Like on the island, the air had been cool in the morning. However, by noon it was already hotter than we ever got. After a couple of hours of weeding, you could see a little progress, but nothing to write home about. My back ached and my fingers were grimy and rough, but I felt good.
    “Hey, farmer girl, are you planning to weed all day?” the guy asked from the sunporch where he was tanning himself, watching me work.
    “Actually, I was just going to stop. My name’s Molly.”
    He grunted.
    “What should I call you?”
    “Mr. Edwards.”
    I nodded. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Mr. Edwards.”
    “If you’re trying to soften me up, you’re wasting your time.”
    “I’m not. I just can’t see a garden without wanting to get my hands on it.”
    I smiled to myself as I walked around the end of the fence into Grandpa’s yard. He stood there, fists on his hips, waiting for me.
    “You’ve been over there for hours. What were you doing?”
    He actually sounded a little worried. I smiled, trying to reassure him. “I was just helping him weed and talking to the kids.”
    I heard a giggle from the other side of the fence, and I had to dodge a giant zucchini, three tomatoes, a head of lettuce, four cucumbers, and a handful of green beans. Grandpa and I scurried around gathering our lunch. Most of it looked to be in a lot better shape than the stuff Mr. Edwards usually threw over.
    “Don’t eat all this,” I told him. “I want to make soup later.”
    He grasped his bounty against his chest. “You don’t put lettuce and cucumbers in soup.”
    I laughed. “Fine. Eat those.”
    “I will.” He strutted off to the house.
    The day was just starting to heat up, and I knew I better get going down to the market pretty soon. Jane had inadvertently shown me a way home, and now I had to see if it would work. If it did, hopefully we’d all be heading for Canada by next