week #10/52: grow

“It’s summertime,” she said, clutching her arms tighter as it started to rain. “We’re always busier in the summers. The new shop, and Charlotte’s about to have the babies. I have a lot on my mind. I’m not mad.”

He sighed. “Of course.” Though he wished she would just be mad, that he threw his dirty field clothes on the bed, that he walked through the house in his boots, that he put the milk carton back empty. Anything. He would be overjoyed that she was mad at him, so that it wouldn’t be something else instead.

“I’m going inside,” she said. “It’s starting to rain. Are you coming?”

He shook his head.

He wandered to his fields in the warm summer drizzle. He meant to plant a lighter crop this year, but all he gained from the lightened workload was the extra time to watch his marriage fall apart. It was too late to change his mind at this point in the season. He had what he had, and there was no going back. So he watched the wheat sway in the wind, tiny raindrops stinging his face, the wet sky feeding the soil. He reached out a hand to touch the young stalks as he passed. It amazed him that this ground was so filled with life, that anything at all on this toxic farm was able to grow.

– Matt, from book #2 (working title: A Thousand Simple Truths)

notes: I am cheating the crap out of this week! I actually took this picture last summer, lol!

But I’m busy, and I’m writing, and that trumps my picture project. At least for the next few weeks until I get this novel draft done. And I will get this novel draft DONE, and to my beta readers, by June 12th! I have about eight weeks, and it’s looking possible, people! It’s gonna happen, I swear it!

And maybe this is like one of those things where if you say it out loud with enough conviction, it might actually manifest itself into existence? 😉