Free Season of Salt and Honey by Hannah Tunnicliffe

rhubarb one of these days.”
    I find myself smiling. She has a calming way about her, despite the wild hair and the singsongy voice. She’s at ease with herself.
    â€œI can talk about gardening all day,” she says. “It gets like that, you know?”
    There’s not a single potted plant in our apartment, but I nod.
    â€œI lived in Rome a while—long story—but I even managed to garden there . . . on a four-foot-square terrace,” she says proudly.
    â€œMy family’s from Italy.”
    â€œWhereabouts?”
    â€œMama’s family was from Calabria, Papa’s are from Sicily. But my parents met here, in the States.”
    I think of my family, all together at a feast for one of the festivals. They speak in Sicilian dialect with the older generation, or to swear, and in Italian with the Calabresi or other American-Italian friends. English for Alex, of course. We’re a mixed bunch—diverse as orphans, thick as thieves.
    â€œLike Cyndi Lauper,” Merriem says.
    â€œShe’s Italian?”
    â€œHer mother’s Sicilian.”
    â€œI didn’t know that.”
    I think of Bella and me, an infinitely long time ago, hopping around to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” ponytails bouncing, TV and stereo remotes as microphones.
    â€œA lot of Italians garden using moon charts like I do,” Merriem says. “You’d think it wouldn’t sit so well with the Catholicside of things, but it seems to. Food must be too important to get messed up in religion.”
    â€œWe love our food. That’s no myth.”
    â€œIt works. I get tomatoes that are as big as footballs.” Merriem winks at me. “Besides, it’s not as kooky as it seems. The sun and the moon make the tides, and the tides affect water. What do plants need most? Or seeds, I should say. Moisture. Right at the surface of the soil where they can use it best. There are also tides in the air, lunar winds, and even earth tides—the soil rising and falling inches in a day.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYup. It’s old stuff. Planting calendars have been around for centuries. Waxing moons and waning moons are good for different things, and when you put that together with the signs you can figure just the right date for planting. Or picking.”
    When Merriem smiles her freckled cheeks rise up and her eyes almost disappear, like vanishing moons themselves. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, her limbs lean and her back straight, graceful and yet full of latent energy.
    â€œIt’s a waning moon now,” she says. “Could you tell? It’s pretty black at night. Can take some getting used to when you’re accustomed to regular light switches and all the rest.”
    I nod, thinking of our little apartment with every comfort and convenience. At the cabin everything takes a lot more effort—cooking, washing, going to the bathroom.
    â€œMakes you realize just how much of a human hand there is in every single thing we do, everything we touch. We’ve madeliving so easy it’s hard to know who’s in control. Nature or us? Sure feels like us.”
    â€œNot here,” I say.
    She nods. “No, not out here in the forest. Here we’re in God’s palm.”
    It’s something Papa or the aunties would say.The thought makes me shiver a little: how limited the control we have over the things that matter is. My generation expects the world to yield to our command, to do as we bid it. How naive we are.
    *  *  *
    I walk back to the cabin through the dappled light and duff that smells both sweet and rotting. I’m carrying a basket filled with spears of asparagus and two big jars of pretty, pink, stewed rhubarb.
    Coming along the path the other way is a woman, looking at her feet as she walks. She’s wearing jeans, a big shirt, and sneakers that were white once. She has a hat over the top of long blond hair.