The Farewell Season (2 page)

I didn't know how Rolf could stand living out on the edge of town, but growing up in the middle of a garden nursery seemed to be his idea of heaven. His family had been in the seed and nursery business for three generations. Rolf was going to make it four.

It was weird to think my family was down to one generation of males. Me.

I wandered back into the kitchen and found Mom and Kirstin packing cookies into tins. Kirstin saw me eyeing the spritz cookies and slapped a lid on a tin she'd just filled. "You know, Eric, if you're so interested in these cookies you could've, like, helped bake them!"

"Now, Kirstin." Mom brushed a smudge of flour off her arm. "Eric has done his share of cookie baking over the years. He had to work full time this summer, and preseason football practice starts tomorrow. He doesn't have time."

"Oh, stop making excuses for him." Kirstin stared right through me. "You so always make excuses for Eric."

"Now, Kirstin …." Mom sighed.

I gave Kirstin a smug smile, just to bug her, even though I knew she was right. Mom always made excuses for me. But now I was almost eighteen. I didn't need my mother defending me. Still, anything to annoy Kirstin. I increased the wattage on my mocking smile.

The buzzer sounded, indicating a customer in the antique store. Kirstin waited until Mom went through the kitchen door into the shop, then threw a sponge at me.

"Missed!" I said. "You always were a lousy shot." I laughed as I ducked out of the kitchen.

I heard Kirstin muttering under her breath, but she didn't come after me. She was probably figuring out a new place to hide the cookies. Even if they weren't for the fair, she'd hide them from me. I always accused her of being stingy. She claimed she was generous, but I'd eat them all if she didn't stash them somewhere.

I thought about trying to watch more of last year's games. Dad always recorded them all, and I always studied them with him before practices started. I decided to mow the lawn instead.

I'd worked for Pappy Pratt six days a week since school got out. I figured we could use the money, and mowing, raking, and pruning turned out to be a good way to keep in shape. Pappy was a short, wiry, grizzly guy in his late seventies. He could go all day, his lined, leathery face sweltering in the hot sun. At the end of each afternoon he'd clap his hand on my shoulder and say, "Eric, I think we put in a good day's labor."

I'd go home, shower, bolt down several bunches of sweet red grapes, eat supper, and zonk out for at least an hour. Most of the time I didn't even go out, just read or watched a little TV and fell into bed. But I knew Pappy went home, had supper with his wife, and tended to his own few acres of land.

I wondered if I'd be working that hard when I was in my seventies. I wondered if I'd even live to
be
in my seventies. There was a time when I felt as if I'd live forever. Not anymore.

"C'mon, dammit!" I started the ritual of pulling the starter cord on the mower. Dad had always been the one to mow the lawn. This summer I just sort of took over without being asked. I told myself that this time the mower would start right away, but it always took a couple dozen pulls before it caught. After about the tenth, I stopped to wipe the sweat off my forehead.

I saw Mom peek out of her shop window. She'd mentioned several times how long the grass was. She and Kirstin did about ninety percent of the yard work. They loved puttering around outside. I'd helped plant trees and large shrubs, and I knew the names of most of the plants, but Kirstin was the real expert. She wanted to be a Master Gardener someday. That, or a chef at some famous restaurant. She loved the Home and Garden channel, especially Landscaper's Challenge, and watched tons of cooking shows too, from Rachel Ray to Wolfgang Puck to Amy Finely.

Even though I could cook and garden, Kirstin was much better at both. Same with the piano. We'd both had lessons, but when it was obvious how good Kirstin was, I quit and zeroed in on sports. I didn't like to do stuff where Kirstin could outshine me. Athletically, she could walk and chew gum at the same time, but that was about it.

"Start, you stupid piece of junk!" I gave the starter cord another tug. "It's too hot for this crap!" One more pull and—finally—the mower started. We had almost an acre of land, but fortunately, less than half was grass.

The back yard was a cool oasis that Mom and Kirstin proudly called their shade garden. Under a towering canopy of fir and oak trees they'd planted hardy shrubs, ground cover, and native woodland flowers all pulled together with winding, moss-covered paths. Way in the back was a small man-made—well, Mom-and-Kirstin-made—pond. Filled with lily pads, lotus plants, and goldfish, it was my favorite spot, though of course I'd never tell Kirstin that.

Suddenly, there was a humongous whine, and then the mower stalled. "Shee-it! Now what?" I checked around and found a piece of wire caught in the blades. I grabbed it and gave it a good yank. "Aaaaaah!" I got nothing for my effort but a thin stinging cut. I kicked the mower.

The mower sat there, silent, the wire caught in its blades as tight as ever.

It took me twenty minutes of sweating and swearing to carefully work that wire loose, restart the mower, and finish mowing the lawn. Dripping with sweat, I headed for the bathroom to take a shower. There, standing in the steady stream of heat, enveloped by the steamy mist, I felt removed from myself.

For a few minutes, I just let my mind float. Then I lathered with blue Zest and tried to think about tomorrow's practice. My thoughts drifted back to my freshman year. I didn't worry about Life then. I was too worked up trying to get playing time, flying when I got it, soaring when I made the starting lineup.

Back then high school stretched ahead of me like an endless horizon. Now, I had one year left. Where did the time go?

I turned the water to cold, so cold my skin tightened and shriveled. I stood there until I was afraid my nuts would freeze off. Then I stepped out of the shower into the cocoon of steam filling my lungs and fogging the mirror. I felt as if I were invisible, as if my molecules were floating around the room just like the particles of steam.

"Hey, Eric!" Kirstin pounded on the door. "Quit hogging the bathroom!"

My mind snapped back into my head with a clank. Nothing like a sister to bring you back to mundane reality. I wrapped a towel around my waist, opened the door, and, on my way out, flicked water in Kirstin's face. "It's all yours."

Kirstin stormed in and slammed the door behind her.

"You don't have to get so steamed up about it," I said, enjoying my own pun. I still had that old ability to torment Kirstin.

At least some things never changed.

Chapter Two

The next morning I woke up after having the same kind of fitful, dreamless sleep I'd had for the past four months. It was just barely light out. Too early to get up, too late to try to go back to sleep. I stared at the ceiling.

Although all I moved were my eyelids, Starburst knew instantly that I was awake. She trotted up my legs and onto my stomach. I'd thrown back the covers during the night, so her claws dug in as she peddled on my stomach.

"Ouch! Cut it out!" I swatted Starburst's paws.

Undeterred, Starburst strolled across my chest and started licking my chin. Those warm, wet scrapes were just about the only physical contact I'd had with anyone since I broke up with Hedy Theodore. For a couple of seconds, I let Starburst get away with it.

Then I sat up, and Starburst rolled down my chest and onto the bed. "Pest." I scratched her chin before opening the window. "Out ya go."

With a quick meow, Starburst jumped onto the roof of the porch and started her morning ritual of managing her fur. Sometimes I envied her. What a life. Sleep, groom, eat, stare at a bug, chase a butterfly. Repeat. Not a care in the world.

Suddenly, my alarm went off. I jumped like a puppet on a string. I whacked the alarm button.
Why did I even bother setting it?
I wondered. I always woke up before it went off.

Then I remembered. It was the first day of practice. As I pulled on my green shorts and T-shirt it dawned on me that I wasn't feeling the usual early breeze. The air was still, and there was no morning chill. Heat waves were rare in this part of Oregon, but when they did come it always seemed to be during two-a-days. It was the middle of August, three weeks before school started, a time to get back into a football mindset without the distraction of classes.

Maybe the weather was why I didn't have that fever pitch of excitement I'd always felt on the first day of practice. Maybe after I got to school the rush would come over me. Meanwhile, maybe some food would help.

I caught a whiff of blueberry
kakar.
That lured me down to the kitchen where Mom was keeping vigil over her sour-cream biscuits. Except for the periodic cookie sprees and the occasional use of a few family recipes, Mom didn't really like to cook. The blueberry
kakar
was something she did for special breakfasts, such as the first day of football practice.

"Smells good," I said, only half looking at Mom.

She flashed me a big smile—too big—and said, "I've got to run off to an estate sale in Eugene in fifteen minutes. But I wouldn't miss making your traditional blueberry
kakar
."

I swallowed hard. Memories crashed down on me. Mom making
kakar
while Dad ran around the kitchen brewing coffee, pouring juice, making his always-optimistic predictions for the new football season. Sometimes, he seemed to get even more excited about it than I did, and I got pretty excited. At least I used to.

At that moment Kirstin strolled into the kitchen wearing a shorts-and-halter outfit I'd never seen before. I let out a low whistle. "Fire-engine red. Who're you trying to impress, Kirstin? The goldfish?"

Kirstin stuck her tongue out at me.

"Oooh. A vicious retort."

Kirstin ignored me.

It was hard to keep bugging her when she didn't respond. When she was little, I could get a major rise out of her just by pointing my finger in her face or calling her "Gooch." Or I'd tell her I'd sneezed in her milk and she'd run and tell Mom, who would then force me to confess that I had done no such thing. When Kirstin got to be ten or eleven, however, it seemed to occur to her that by not reacting to my "tormenting," as Mom called it (Dad referred to it as "teasing"), I'd get bored and stop. That did take a lot of the fun out of it, but occasionally I could still hit the mark.

The timer went off. Mom peeked in the oven. "Ahh, perfect."

Kirstin disappeared into the pantry. Mom grabbed a potholder, pulled out a sheet of just-golden
kakar
, and slid them onto a platter. I busied myself by pouring the orange juice.

Then I sat down and waited for Mom and Kirstin to come to the table. As Mom poured herself a mug of coffee, Kirstin walked out of the pantry carrying a butter dish that she placed on the table. "I made this last night to surprise you."

A football-sized lump formed in my throat. I rubbed my hands together and tried to make light of it. "Mmm, homemade butter on blueberry
kakar
. This has gotta be the best breakfast in town."

"Oh, Eric …." Mom beamed.

Kirstin looked pleased. "I always did make the best butter."

I would've argued with her, but I was afraid my voice would crack if I did. Dad started the butter-making tradition when we were little. On holidays, to keep us busy and out of trouble, he poured a little whipping cream into two jars and told me and Kirstin to shake them. Whoever made butter first was declared The Winner, so the cream-shaking competition was fierce.

There never was any actual prize for being first, but you'd think a million bucks was hanging on the outcome the way we went at it. Then, during Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner, or whatever the occasion, we'd watch to see whose butter was being eaten up the fastest. That always ended in a tie. It was years before it occurred to either one of us that the grownups knew their butter consumption was being monitored, so they intentionally kept it even.

Kirstin slathered a blueberry
kakar
with her homemade butter and took a bite. "Mmm, this is so good. Remember how Dad used to always—"

"Kirstin!" I said. "Would you … would you pass me the butter before my
kakar
gets cold?"

Kirstin handed me the butter. "As I was say—"

"Omigosh!" Mom jumped up from the table. "I want to be one of the first at the estate sale. There's supposed to be a large collection of depression glassware. I could make a pile off that stuff." She almost knocked over her coffee mug as she grabbed her keys and purse. "I don't know how long I'll be gone. Watch the store, just in case. I can use every customer I can get." She started for the door, then stopped and came over to me. "Have a good practice, Eric."

"Yeah, sure." I tried not to flinch when she kissed my cheek.

After Mom left, I wolfed down a couple more biscuits, polished off my orange juice, and gulped a big glass of milk. When I was done, I said, "Thanks for making the butter, Kirstin."