Free A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry

a clump of small purple flowers. "
Viola pedata,
" he said, talking to Molly, ignoring me. "So called because the leaves resemble the foot of a bird. You believe me, don't you, Molly?"
    Molly was laughing. The sun was shining through her thin hair, and for the first time since she'd been sick, there was color in her cheeks. "I don't know for sure, Will," she smiled. "I
think
I believe you, but the only wild flower I recognize is goldenrod."
    He nodded. "
Solidago,
" he said. "Very common around here, a remarkable plant. But we won't see it bloom until the end of July. In the meantime, you should investigate some of these others, Molly. It would keep you busy until you can go back to school, and it would be good for you, being in the fresh air."

    Molly shrugged. She didn't like being reminded of her problems. We walked on.
    Ben and Maria were behind the house, starting a garden. They had a patch of ground dug up, and Ben was standing in the middle of the turned earth, chopping at the lumps with a hoe. There was sweat all over his bare back—he wasn't wearing anything but faded, patched jeans—and even though there was a handkerchief tied around his head, his hair and beard were wet with sweat too. He smiled when he saw us.
    "Ah, saviors!" he called. "You're coming to rescue me from this slave labor, right?"
    "Wrong," called the girl who was sitting in the grass at the corner of the garden patch. "No rescue! I want to get my peas planted. Hi, Will!"
    I burst out laughing. Will had told me very casually that there seemed to be a baby coming. That was the understatement of the year. Sometimes I forget that Will is seventy years old, and that he's a little shy about some things. Maria was so thoroughly pregnant that I thought we would do well to start boiling water immediately.
    She was sitting with her legs crossed, and her middle was resting on her knees. She was wearing a man's shirt with the sleeves ripped out; her arms were bare and very tan, the same as her legs. The shirt was buttoned around her, but just barely; the middle button was pulled sideways by her stomach, and it was going to pop off very soon. I hoped she had a bigger shirt ready; either that, or that the baby would be born before long. It looked like it was going to be a race between the baby and the button, and I didn't know enough about either pregnancy or the art of mending to be able to predict which was going to detach itself first.

    Maria had one long dark braid down her back, and a smile that included all three of us, as well as Ben, who was still leaning on his hoe.
    "I'd like you to meet my two friends, Meg and Molly Chalmers," Will said. "Meg is the photographer I've been telling you about. And Molly is the cheerleader, but I'm going to try to turn her into a botanist. Girls, this is Ben Brady. And Maria."
    Maria reached up to shake our hands, and said, "Maria Abbott." Out of the corner of my eye I could see Will flinch slightly. It all went right over Molly's head. She was so interested in the baby.
    "When is the baby due?" asked Molly. "Do you mind my asking? I just love babies."
    From the garden, where he had started to hack at
a clod of earth that obviously had a rock in the middle of it, Ben looked up and chuckled. He rolled his eyes. "Does she
mind
your asking? Prepare yourself, Molly, for an hour ... two hours,
three
hours ... of conversation. That's all she talks about! I remember a time—it wasn't so long ago, either, come to think of it—when Maria and I used to talk about books. Music. The weather. Politics. Little things like that. Now we sit down in the evening after supper, and we pour a couple cups of tea, put some Beethoven on the stereo, and talk about diapers." He groaned, but he was looking at Maria affectionately.

    We were all laughing, even Maria. She threw a handful of weeds at him lightly, and said, "Just hoe your row, Daddy. Molly, come in the house with me. I'll show you the cradle I've been