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Grass Stains
“Are you sure you don’t have any older clothes to wear?” To be honest, Dez was a bit jealous of Emmie’s wardrobe. All her own clothes were either past their 'best by' date, or were covered in paint splashes. Her t-shirts had tell-tale grease spots front and centre. It was well past time to go shopping. Then her sister comes into the kitchen all polished and shining. She was prepared to shrink inside, but had been distracted by the passing tenderness between Samuel and Cook as Samuel was on his way out the door. Dez quoted Samuel to Emmie: “Those jeans will get ‘all tore up’, not to mention the grass stains you'll get on your knees.”
“Why would I get grass stains on my knees? We can just get a stick to go through the grass and weeds to find any - what are they - spigots, sprayers?” Emmie truly was curious.
“Oh Emmie. You really don’t know what we have to do and how, do you?” Dez was continually surprised by her sister's lack of knowledge of outside work. “Matt said we’d probably have to replace it all anyway. We do have to find it first so we know what's there. All of it is likely too old and may have just deteriorated over the years. We don’t even know how old it is.” Dez almost felt a little sad for Emmie. Her life must have been very sheltered all these years.
“I know what you’re thinking Dez.” Emmie face was set except for a little wobble of her chin. She looked up into the leaves above her head, as she touched away a tear. She was suddenly excited. “Oh look! There are a few tiny little apples!”
Dez stayed on task, interested in the tiny apples, but she would look later. Right now they had a job to do. “Let’s just see what’s here, then pace it off till we find another spray head. We’ll have to find some way of marking them off. I’m just going over to the toolshed to see if there’s any kind of pegs in there.” Times like these were when both of the women forgot their supposed maturity and slipped back into youthful insecurities - Emmie pointing out the pretty distractions like tiny apples; Dez gruffly trying to distract Emmie to get her back to reality.
While Dez was gone, Emmie leaned her back against the nearest tree. “Can I really do this? This being responsible for it all?” She stood, turned and spoke directly to the apple tree. “Yes I can. I can take care of you. I can take care of your home and everyone that lives in and around it.”
“What did you say, Emmie?” Dez was certain she heard Emmie talking when she returned with a handful of old tent pegs.”
“Oh, nothing important. I was just talking to the trees telling them how beautiful they are. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Talk to your plants and your trees.” Emmie’s voice sounded a bit too bright, but her eyes were dry.
“That’s what they say.” Dez hadn't really been listening and carried on about her findings. “Here's some old tent pegs. I’ll get some bright orange paint and touch up their tops so we can see them easily. Now, where’s that first spray head. I’m going to guess the next one wouldn’t be any more than a foot or 14 inches away.” Dez had done some irrigation research online to find out how far apart the spigots were placed. To her untrained eye, a foot looked like too close together. She'd ask Matt about that. Emmie decided to get involved and measured off what she thought would be about 14 inches, knelt down in the grass and with her bare hands pulled grass and weeds away from the next spray head. “Dez, bring me a tent peg and look at this. There’s an old plastic tag on this one. I can barely make out the words on it but it might be the company that set this up.” Sitting down in the grass, she was excited. Then, trying to jump up, she sat back with a thump. “Dez” Dez wasn't paying attention to anything but finding the next spray head. A little sharply, Emmie called again “Dez! Can you help me up?”
Dez looked over where Emmie was sitting, and from where she was working, just steps away, reached out her hand to her sister. She slipped on the wet grass, lost her balance and landed quite unceremoniously on the ground beside Emmie, barely missing the spray head. The two women looked at each other for a moment. Emmie put the back of her hand over her mouth. “I’m not laughing. Really.” Then burst out laughing anyway.
Dez put her head down into the wet grass. Emmie couldn’t tell if her sister was laughing or crying. Dez rolled over on her back, laughing. Tears trickled down from the corners of her eyes.
“What do you think Samuel would say if he saw us like this?” Dez barely got it out when a gruff old voice said “I thought you two was grown women. Come on now, get up offn’ that wet ground.” Samuel extended a hand to each of them. “Think it’s time for Elizabeth's good tea and some dry clothes.”
“Thanks Samuel. You go on up to the house and we’ll be along in a minute.” Emmie brushed stray weeds and grass from her shirt and jeans. “I’ve been christened Dez! Look! I’ve got grass stains on my jeans and my shirt. These are now officially my orchard gardening clothes.” She looked past the trees at Samuel striding up to the house. “Don’t you think we should give Samuel and Cook a minute or two before we go up there?”
“Nothing ever becomes real ’til it is experienced.”
~ John Keats
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