Amanda always thought her mother was an odd bird. She always had the most nonsensical sayings.
"Do not make water until you are ready..."
"Break the bread both ways..."
"Don't be fancy, be full..."
"Sugar is foul, what rots is better..."
None of her mother's regrettable stories ever made any sense to her. As a matter of fact, to her, the most regrettable part of her mother's long and winding stories was the fact that she obediently sat for hours on end listening to them as a child. Showing little interest in the dronings on of a middle aged widow as she held the hemp sack open from sunrise to sunset while her mother chirped away picking the tomatoes or the potatoes or the onions was as far from interesting as Amanda could imagine.
Although she heard what her mother would say, Amanda's mind was always elsewhere.
Although her mother always told the same stories over and over again, Amanda never seemed to understand the actual plots or why it had occurred to Silvia to retell that same old tale at that very moment.
Amanda often thought to herself that the world was so vast and her mother had travelled to so many places, listlessly floating as if carried by the breeze to wherever the work was, but still Silvia remained an ignorant picker....with only the same handful of second, third and fourth hand accountings of something that had once happened to the friend of a friend or a neighbor she'd once known. By the time she was twelve, Amanda already knew all of her mother's stories by heart. She could recite them by heart, as Silvia always recounted them exactly the same way...word for word...as if she were reading off some written verse scribed in the dirt of every field they had ever worked.
By the time Amanda was seventeen, time had tattered Silvia so that she became the one holding the sack as Amanda picked and pruned and pulled. But still, Sylvia would rattle off one of the stories about a time something inconsequential happened to one of those lothesome characters from some forgotten past that didn't make one bit of difference to Amanda, at all, even after all this time. Why couldn't she just shut up and let them work in the quiet peace of silence, just for one day?
By the time she was twenty two, Amanda pulled her own sack, which she now kept tied to her belt as she picked and pruned and pulled....now alone. Yet Silvia was still present, in the stories that her daughter would now recite to herself as she diligently tended her work. Anyone standing nearby would have thought she'd gone mad from the heat, talking to herself the way she did, but when the days were long and the work was hard it entertaining her enough to pass the time between rows.
When Amanda was twenty five, it so happened that she came across a young girl - no more than five or six years old - abandoned by her family. As the girl was from a migrant family, there would be no one to care for her...her family probably having long uprooted to more fruitful endeavours. This was not an uncommon occurrence. Migrant families relied on so little, often to care for so many.
To "misplace" a child or two for the betterment of the rest, especially if the child was sickly or small - an eminent burden in a life constantly on the move - was considered quite common, so Amanda thought nothing of it when she saw the girl crying alone in the tall stalks of sugar cane. This was, of course, something she had seen many times before and would probably see many times more.
This time, however, was different. Something about this girl moved Amanda. Maybe it was the pitiful sound of her tired whimpers or the way her scabbed over mosquito bitten legs were curled beneath her as she squatted into a tiny ball, crushing her forehead against her knees. maybe it was the way she held her gurgling stomach with one hand while tightly clenching her other, almost skeletal thin arm around her shins. Covered in dirt and orbited by flies, the most tragic thing about this girl was how terribly lonely she seemed. Which one would assume had been the point...left to die.
On this occasion Amanda could not simply ignore the child and walk away. She offered the girl a drink from her cantine and a slice of bread from her bag.
There could be plenty of opportunities for the child to die alone some other day.
But, to Amanda's dismay, the child shrunk away from her when she approached. To coax the girl, she set the cantine and bread on the ground midway between the two of them. The girl's whimpering ceased. Though now the girl wore an expression of tremendous fear instead. Amanda simply turned around, unsheathed her machete and began back to work again.
To help ease the tension that had suddenly filled the air, Amanda decided to tell one of her mother's old stories. The one that came to mind was the story of the shop girl and the taxi driver.
Everyday the beautiful shop girl would open the little shop where her family had sold flowers for many years. She would dust the vines and sing to all the plants. It is said that singing to plants makes them happy and therefore they grow more beautifully.
At this moment, Amanda interrupted herself.
"Really the plants grow more beautifully because when you talk or sing you breathe more deeply and expell more carbon dioxide, which plants use for food, so they just eat it up. But you know that don't you, my dear?"
As if Silvia herself had posessed the young woman working away in the sugar cane field, the same familiar tangent streamed out of Amanda's mouth, and as her mother always had...without awaiting a response...she continued with the story.
The greenery they sold was some of the finest in all the country. It was a quaint living but the family was pleased and needed for nothing. They were a very happy family and well known in their neighborhood for their kindness and courteousness. The family lived in a small apartment just above the flower shop, and all was right in the world. That is....
Or, that was...
Amanda's mother always took a dramatic pause at this point. She would look back over her shoulder, just as Amanda was doing now, to peer at the child...now much more relaxed and quite contentedly listening for the shoe to drop.
Or, that was...until the day the baker moved into the shop across the street, right next to the butcher. The butcher and the baker did not get along at all and both being older men, established in their respective trades, they wanted to start families of their own. A prospective bride and the apple of both their eyes lay just across the way....in the flower shop.
The unsuspecting target of their affections, however, had already been won over by the taxi driver. He was young and dashing and cavalier. And so young love seemed to be true. But both the butcher and the baker believed this love was fleeting and with the boy gone the shop girl would be forced to accept one of them. So, as it goes, one evening they set a trap together for the young taxi driver. they waited for him to make a final pass by their street for the night and laid the road with broken glass bottles so that when the taxi drove past the tires would pop.
Their plan worked perfectly. Well, almost...
This time when Amanda peeked over her shoulder at the girl she was sitting across legged sipping water from the cantine and nibbling away at the bread left for her. Seeing the child clearly now at ease, Amanda continued.
What the butcher and the baker did not expect was that something could go so terribly wrong. As the glass pierced the tires the car lost control and careened into the side of a large brick building. The young taxi driver had been entirely extinguished.
In a panic to conceal their misdeeds, the baker and the butcher quickly made short work of the taxi driver's remains. The next day the butcher ran an exciting special on beef roasts and chuck beef. Not to be out done, the baker ran a special on his new secret recipe sweet meat pies. Both were a monstrous success and became the talk of the neighborhood.
While the two silently congratulated themselves on their cunning, across the way the shop girl was becoming anxious. She had not seen the taxi driver for a whole day and suspected the two old men opposite her the culprits in a scheme against her dear taxi driver.
And so it went, that several days passed...a week...several weeks, until at last, it had been two months since she had last seen the handsome young taxi driver. Her face had gone pale. The beams of sunlight that seemed to eminate from within her were now dim and faint, if they still existed at all.
As Amanda turned to deliver the sad news of the shop girl's new situation, she found that child had crept to her side and was intently listening to every word. Between her tiny hands she clasped the cantine as if mistaking it for some strangely hydrating comfort object. Her eyes had grown large with anticipation. Of course Amanda didn't pay the child too much mind and picked up the story right where she'd left off and continued her work.
Both the baker and the butcher felt a sharp tug at their hearts to see the girl so depressed. It was time to swoop in and resurrect the damsel. The time was right and there could only be one victor. Each was quite certain of himself and knew exactly what he must do. There could be no margin for error in the next few days, or their prize would be lost to other.
The butcher prepared the finest lamb shank and chops for the florist and his family. Early one day he walked over, paid his courtesies to the florist and made his intentions toward the shop girl known. After a short conversation the florist called to his daughter and invited the butcher inside.
The baker having witnessed the entire scene unfold felt utterly defeated. He had waited too long and given up the perfect opportunity. Several days passed and when the baker finally saw the shop girl again he noticed a new zeal in her appearance. She wore a softly happy expression all the time now. Her color had returned and the calm air around her even seemed effervescent...the way any happy young bride to be should look.
In a last ditch effort, he was determined to steal her away from the butcher. The baker toiled day and night to prepare the most gloriously decadent cake he had ever made before. If she could not be won by such means, it was purely a marriage of convenience. As a Plan B, he was not above groveling to prove how convenient he could be.
Finally, the baker mustered the nerve to approach the Florist. After a short conversation he too had been granted entry to the family's apartment. Thrilled with the thought of his victory, the baker presented his offering to the shop girl who graciously accepted. After taking the cake to the kitchen, she coquettishly invited him up to her bedroom.
Though he felt slightly uncomfortable making such an assertive move in front of the girl's father, he also felt sure that if he didn't seal the deal now and stake his claim, the butcher might yet believe he still had a shot.
The baker followed the young woman up to her bedroom but when she opened the door he felt quite befuddled. Where a bedroom should have been, instead there was a misty garden...fragrant and alluring.
As he turned around he asked in a confused tone, "My darling, are you showing me out? Were you not pleased with my gift? Perhaps if you could taste the cake you could see my genuine interest and determination to please you."
The young woman softly touched the mans chest and stepped close to him. Her enchanting fragrance dizzied him and he felt suddenly weak in the knees. The young woman raised her lips to his and kissed him softly. As she guided him back into this peculiar little garden the door suddenly slammed shut behind them.
A furious growl and several screams later the girl opened the door and stepped back out into the hall. She came down the stairs and to the kitchen, where her father and mother were sitting having tea. Her mother looked up at her radiant daughter who now had a mildly sun kissed shimmering complexion and asked if she'd like a piece of cake.
The gorgeous shop girl turned sweetly to her parents and said, "no thank you. Sugar is foul, what rots is better." She then wiped a red stain from the corner of her mouth and sat down with her parents at the kitchen table to enjoy a cup of tea. Her mother softly brushed her cheek and fixed a small vine of leaves back behind the young woman's ear, tucking it beneath a lock of hair saying in reply only, "oops, roots are showing."
As Amanda finished her story, and consequently the last bit of sugar cane she had to cut, she looked over at the little girl beside her.
A tiny voice squeaked, "wait, that's it? I...I don't get it."
Amanda pursed her lips and responded, "no good? Oh well, I'll tell you another one tomorrow. Maybe you'll like that one better."
As the truck horn blasted, signaling the end of the work day, the little girl took Amanda's hand and turned in the direction of the trucks. Without complaint or question she followed Amanda as they mounted the trucks with the rest of the workers.
There would be more work tomorrow...a new field...and a new story.