6.1 Harvested Too Soon

Ivy was not happy. All of this cheery passing-the-torch family sentimentalism left a sour taste in her mouth. She watched the smiling mother-daughter duo chatting animatedly at lunch and decided to take her plate outside.

She just couldn’t stand that sappy togetherness stuff. She was going to have to come up with something.

Meanwhile, Nandina was leaping into her new leadership role with gusto. She took a job with the local athletic team and began training in earnest with her Aunt Violet.

She still made time for Brady in her busy schedule, hosting a birthday party for him at the Foliage home. Everybody gathered around to cheer him on as he made a wish and blew out the candles.

Right after that, the family received an offer of an all-expense paid two-day vacation for all the whole family, except for Kale and Petal, since they had school. Nandina and Zoysia talked about it and sent word that they could not accept, because it would mean missing too much work, plus the fact that Camellia was expecting her plants to mature the next day and she wanted to deliver them to the diner as agreed. So they turned down the invitation.

However, the next morning a limo showed up anyway, and they all felt obligated to take the trip. Kurtis and Violet hoped that the trip wouldn’t jeopardize their much-awaited promotions. For his part, Kale was quite excited. His girlfriend Quiana was there to see everybody off on the trip, too.

When they got back, Kale said there was nothing out of the ordinary to report. Camellia found otherwise, though. She was beyond dismayed to discover that the diner denied having any experimental gardening deal with her. When she tried to deliver the harvest from her steak plants, they denied having any knowledge of the experiment or any further opportunities for her. She could barely catch her breath from the shock and disappointment.

Everyone was sad about Camellia’s disappointment, but Kale’s graduation brought the smiles back. It was a big day, and the entire family went downtown to see him in his cap and gown.

Then they took him to lunch at the Bistro. Judging by the crowd, it was a popular choice for graduation day dinner.

Violet ran into her boss, and since she had gotten superlatives on her last performance review and was due for a promotion, hoped to have the chance to ask him for it. Unfortunately, she could only work the subject of a raise into the conversation. He did give her that.

The next day, Kale put on what he thought was an appropriate outfit and went out to find work in journalism. He had always enjoyed writing, and now he wanted to make his living in it.

As he left, Petal called to him from the love seat and told him he should write a story about her amazing jet-chair and how she could pilot it from planet to planet.

Petal was growing up, though, and soon she was past the days of playing make believe. She grew into a calm but contented teenager, who maintained her childhood interest in baking. In fact, she enjoyed talking about her new recipes over a meal. Nan was not into cooking herself, but she liked hearing Petal’s animated chatter about her latest experiments with the fruits of the family’s garden.

One night, as Zoysia lay in bed next to her Kurtis, she thought about how fast their children had grown up. She gazed at her husband, whose heart beat so close to hers and whose grey-flecked hair belied his passion for rock. Zoysia felt her heart constrict with love and concern for him. She knew he wasn’t getting any younger, and she also knew he was so close to achieving his dream of being a true rock star. She always told him he was already a rock star to her; in fact, he rocked her world every day. But she hoped he would live to reach his dream and maybe to see his kids reach their own dreams. She knew he would be a great grandfather. And so she ran her fingers through his hair as he slept, then closed her own eyes.

If anyone else had known of her thoughts that night, they would have cried even more loudly at the irony the next morning. Zoysia awoke with a start, then collapsed as she tried to get out of bed the next morning. It was over before she knew exactly what had hit her.

Her loved ones came running, but it was too late.

Nandina was traveling with the team, and when word reached her that her mother had passed away, she was heartbroken.

After the funeral, the family tried to carry on bravely, but things just weren’t the same. They worked, they tended the garden, they read, they checked email, but it just seemed the heart of the home was gone.

Violet made an effort to get out of the house by going to the bookstore to buy some new recipe books for her daughter. Her subconscious gave her a twinge of something wrong when she saw a friend of Ivy’s there all dressed in black with one of Violet’s police force colleagues keeping a discreet eye on her. If Violet had not been suffering so much grief at the loss of her twin, she might have wondered more about her niece’s friend.

Violet might have been even more concerned if she had known about Ivy’s nocturnal activities of late and the rash of fires in the neighborhood. Of course, no theft reports ever reached her desk, because the missing items were assumed to have been turned to ash in the unfortunate fires…

Nandina was dealing with loss in a very different way. Having lost maternal love, she turned to romantic love. Something within her yearned for that closeness, and she hoped to establish another nucleus of love in their household.

Brady wasn’t one to move fast, though, as Nan was discovering. She could wait, though. Things hadn’t completely fallen apart at home.

Not yet.

And then, just before the day when Kurtis was due to get his final promotion, he collapsed in front of the theatre on his way in to work.

Kale had dropped by on a break from work to wish his dad well, and he was just in time to say goodbye. They had shared a special father-son bond, and while Kale was happy his father had lived to see him graduate, it hurt that his dad had not quite had enough time to achieve his own dreams.

Later that same day, as if the family hadn’t suffered enough already, there was another sad event. As Petal wrote in her journal, “We lost Mama today. She was so vibrant and stood out from everybody else. I was proud to be her daughter, and now without her, or Aunt Zoysia, or Uncle Kurtis, I don’t know what we’re going to do. Mama had four different careers, although she didn’t quite get as far as she had wanted in her last one. I’ve thought about what I could do to honor her. Should I go into policework and finish what she started? But I didn’t inherit her gift for athletics. I don’t have her original sense of fashion either. But one of the last big things she did for me was buy me those new recipe books. I think I’m going to dedicate myself to learning everything in them, so I can honor the memory of all that my mother meant to me.”

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