North didn’t speak. We sat there for a long time. Finally I glanced at him. Sawdust coated his baggy shorts and T-shirt. Gray streaks speared through his tangle of brown hair and bushy beard, and weathered lines radiated from the corners of his eyes. He still had a tiny braid on the left side of his beard, the strands knotted and tied at the end with a frayed, red ribbon.
I gestured to it. “You still have that.”
He tugged at the braid. “Some things you keep.”
“Why?” I’d never asked him before.
“Memories. Reminders of the good stuff. I had a daughter. She died when she was a baby.” He rubbed the braid between his thumb and forefinger. “She had just enough hair to wear a red ribbon.”
“I’m sorry.” My throat tightened. “How is that the good stuff?”
“I had her for nine months. She’d hold my thumb. She always stopped crying when I picked her up. Bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. Some people don’t get even that. If I don’t look at it that way, it would have killed me years ago.”
“Is that why you quit MIT?” I asked, knowing his daughter’s death was the catalyst for his descent into hard living before he found Twelve Oaks.
“Yeah.” North tugged at the braid again. “Sometimes it takes a while, but eventually you learn which way is up, you know?”
I didn’t know, but I wanted to. I hoped maybe one day I would.
We fell silent again. I stared at the ground and clasped my hands together.
“You finish school?” he asked.
“Graduated from high school.”
“Good for you. Any plans?”
“Not yet. I… I was in college, but had to leave.” Words crowded my throat. I took a breath. “Some… some bad stuff happened to me, North.”
He didn’t ask what. Didn’t seem to expect a confession. Instead he rubbed his braid again and stared out at the artichoke field.
“You want to stay here?” he asked.
Tears stung my eyes. “Can I?”
“We keep a couple of rooms open for visitors. They’re unoccupied now. One of them’s yours, if you want it.”
“I want it.”
“Okay, then. You remember Asha? She writes up the work schedule, so talk to her and figure out where you can help. She’s probably in the kitchen.”
He pushed to his feet. “Welcome back, Liv.”
I thought I would leave Twelve Oaks in a few weeks, but I stayed for over a year. I lived in a small bedroom at the back of the main house and spent my mornings working in the vegetable garden and my afternoons learning how to make soap or helping North with his woodwork. I boxed up herbs and vegetables for the weekly farmer’s market and spent ten hours a week in the commune’s library cataloging their collection.
I spent as much time as I could in the garden, digging my bare hands into the dirt, killing insects, picking tomatoes. I started a flower garden in a little patch of earth between the main house and the barn, and within a couple of months I’d created a colorful blanket of geraniums, petunias, pansies, and lantanas. I began to think I might stay at Twelve Oaks forever.
One day I was working at the downtown Santa Cruz farmer’s market. North and I were at the Twelve Oaks booth selling our home-grown, organic produce. Vegetable stands, food trucks, bakeries, and florists all lined the street, and crowds of people strolled around sampling strawberries, peaches, honey, cinnamon rolls.
Stepping out of the flow of traffic, two young women stopped beside the Twelve Oaks booth. Both were slender and pretty, one with straight blond hair and the other with a short ponytail. They had backpacks around their shoulders and held little cups of sorbet.
“If I declare a major now, I’ll be able to do the education abroad program my junior year,” the girl with the ponytail remarked.
“The tropical biology project is in Costa Rica,” the blonde said. “I’d love to do that. Don’t you also have to do a field study abroad?”
I moved closer, listening to them talk about sociology majors and curricula before they shifted into a conversation about a mutual friend who had a new boyfriend. The ponytail girl glanced up to where I was standing.
“Hi.” I cleared my throat. “Would you like to try a sample of our vine-ripened tomatoes?”
“Sure.” The girl took a tomato from the basket I extended. “What’s your major?”
The question startled me until I remembered I was wearing a UCSC T-shirt that had once belonged to a Twelve Oaks resident.
“I’m not a student,” I admitted.
“Oh. Wow, these tomatoes are really good.” She reached for another one. “We should get some and make a salad for Emily’s dinner party tomorrow night.”
They conferred over the vegetables and bought a few baskets. After handing them their change, I watched them disappear into the crowd with their backpacks and cloth shopping bags.
I looked at North. He was sitting behind the lettuce bins, munching on a samosa.
“You could go back,” he said.
I shook my head. “Not to Fieldbrook. And I can’t afford tuition anywhere else.”
“So you go to community college for a few years. Get your general ed out of the way, then transfer to a university.”
It was a scary thought. Any thought beyond staying at Twelve Oaks forever was scary.
“Liv.”
I looked at him.
“Don’t hide,” North said.
“I’m not.”
“You remember I told you once you were like a turtle?” North asked.
“Yes.”