Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
She took the packets, adjusting her glasses to read the small print on the back of the seed envelopes.
“These will need plenty of water the first few weeks,” she said, looking toward the old copper watering can sitting near the well.
I carried the metal bucket of tools down to the patch, the sun now high enough to cast short shadows.
Clara knelt on a small foam pad, using her hand trowel to make shallow trenches in the clean black dirt.
“Your father says the weather will hold through Sunday,” she said.
Patrick dropped the seeds one by one into the trench, spacing them exactly four inches apart.
“They will grow back stronger next spring,” I said.
Patrick stopped his hand over the soil, looking down at the tiny dark seeds in his palm.
“They will,” he said.
He covered them with a light layer of dirt, pressing it down with the flat of his hand.
I walked to the well and filled the old copper watering can, the metal cool and heavy in my grip.
