Mind Games

Lucy glanced at Thea. “I get a pair of willing hands and a strong back to help me in the spring. Now I’ve got two more. You’ll get a taste of it when we plant our winter crop, but next spring, you’ll see how it all starts.”

Taking a short break, Lucy lifted her face to the sun.

“There’s satisfaction in that, and more when you do the harvesting. More still when you reach for a jar of something on a cold night that you grew and put by with your own hands.”

They hadn’t grown vegetables in Virginia, Thea thought, and twisted a tomato from the vine the way her grandmother taught her. But she’d helped plant flowers every spring. And she’d liked watching them grow.

She wondered if whoever bought the house would plant flowers.

She hoped they would.

And she hoped the police and the courts all made Riggs pay for those other people he’d killed. She knew the name of the girl now, because Detective Howard had called to tell her.

She’d been Jessica Lynn Vernon, and she’d been fifteen.

She’d never plant flowers or pick tomatoes or reach for a jar of what she’d put by on a cold winter night.

I did the best I could for her, Thea thought. She trusted the detectives to do the best they could.

Now, once again, she put it aside, or tried. As she held the tomato up to her nose, drawing in its scent, she scanned the green of the hills.

She’d see it all change in the fall, through the winter, and into spring. She’d watch the redbuds bloom next year. She could miss her parents—she’d always miss them—and be grateful for the smell of a fresh-picked tomato, for the deep, dreamy summer green of the hills, and the hazy mountains beyond.

* * *

The last week before school, Thea hardly thought of anything else. The thought of being singled out, not accepted or fitting in filled her with such anxiety she wondered if she could talk her grandmother into homeschooling her.

When the idea took root, she crafted her argument and launched it early one morning before Rem got up.

Lucy came down to find Thea had made the coffee.

“One of your early bird days?”

“I could get up early every day and make the coffee, then bring Aster in for milking. I could do a lot more to help if you homeschooled me. Lots of kids get homeschooled.”

“Hmm. I see I’m going to need this coffee straight off.”

“I’ll get it for you. I can make breakfast, too. I don’t mind at all. We can make a schedule for lessons, and assignments. They have programs online and everything.”

“You’ve given this considerable thought.”

“I’m a good student. I got mostly As. And if I’m homeschooled, I could learn more about farming and making the soap and everything for your business.”

With the ease of experience, Lucy twisted her hair up, secured it with the band she took off her wrist.

“That’s true. You could do all that. And while you were doing all that, you’d miss out on being around young people your own age, learning different things from different teachers, going to school activities, learning about the different ways other young people think and live and act.”

“I don’t care about any of that.”

Because nobody would talk to her anyway! And they’d all look at her funny because she didn’t have any Kentucky in her voice, and she’d picked out the wrong shoes, and wore her hair wrong.

“I just want to stay here. I’ll study, and I’ll work and learn and help, and—”

“Slow down, darling. You’re nervous about starting something new, and that’s a natural thing. You’re worried somebody’ll make fun of you or be mean to you. It’s a fact that sort of thing can happen anytime or anywhere in this life. But I’m going to tell you something.”

Thea’s eyes stung with tears when Lucy cupped her face.

“I’m going to tell you, not because I’m your grammie, but because I know who you are. You’re going to be just fine. More than fine.”