Rebecca stood under the plum tree. She reached her tiny fingers up, picking one off the lowest branch. It barely fit in the palm of her hands. Rebecca ran through the yard toward the porch, careful to not trip. Her mother, May, sat stitching a blue dress with yellow patches. May watched her daughter run up with a plum in her hands.

Lord, she prayed, give me patience.

“Momma,” Rebecca said, “you fixing my dress for church?”

“Baby, no. We ain’t going today. And, I told you to leave that tree alone,” May said, eyes never leaving her stitching. “Go put that plum back where you found it. Give the deer something to eat.”

“Momma,” Rebecca said, rolling her eyes. “I picked it off the tree.”

“Taking its life before it’s time?” May said. “Stop wasting God’s creations, you hear?” “Momma,” Rebecca said, “if God didn’t want us eaten them fruits, why he put them there to begin with?”

“The lord would think I named you Eve.” May didn’t want her daughter to believe a smart mouth was comical, so she held in her laugh. “You’re testing my patience and it’s not even noon.”

May put the dress down and walked to her daughter. They met at eye level. This was a common ritual between the two: stare, until one looks away, declaring the other the winner. Rebecca blinked at specks of dust in the sunlight, giving her mother the victory and she knew where the plum was headed: the trash.

Rebecca watched her mother walk to the kitchen door. “You wasting ‘god’s creations’ Momma—”

“Rebecca, if you ‘momma’ me one more time,” May said.

“Well,” Rebecca said, “Daddy would let me—”

“Rebecca.”

May closed the door before she heard her daughter’s smart-mouth reply. She walked to the trashcan and rested her foot on the pedal. Her eyes darted back and forth between the plum, the trashcan, and her daughter out on the porch. Ultimately, May took her foot off the trash pedal and set the plum next to the sink, and proceeded to wash dishes.

Peering out the window that overlooked the sun porch, she saw Rebecca pressing her face into the screen. Every fiber in May’s body told her to snap at her daughter. The two had discussed, leaning into the screened-porch was not allowed, but Rebecca rarely listened to her mother these days.

Over the past six months, all Rebecca did was retort or question her mother. Whether it was why pumpkins were orange, to why they didn’t go to church anymore. Rebecca had a response for everything, pushing both mother and daughter to their limits.

The only reason I can think of her doing all those things to annoy me is that her and her daddy did it together, May thought. It’s what those two did best.

May closed her eyes, took a deep breath in, and drifted back to the dishes.

***

Rebecca liked the feeling of the warm sun against her face on the screen. Each small fragment of light hitting her at different angles, creating a different sensation from each square.

Momma would yell if she looked out that window. If only Daddy were here, she thought. He’d come running up from the field and press his face from the other side too, and then give me a kiss.

Rebecca thought of the plum tree. Their branches, heavy and ripe. Rebecca loved to take a bite and feel the juices spill over her lips and drip down her chin. Her mother hated it. Stains would stick to her dresses. Her mother would suggest apples instead. Less of a mess, she would say.

– Beasley Nester

Author’s Note: In my short stories, I find the idea of farm life consuming. It was something I always wanted to be a part of when a child. My closest find growing up did live on a farm, and I was able to see that it was not glamour in any way. I imagine just what life could look like for someone going through the hardest of times while working fields and tending to animals, all while having a family. This story reaches into just what it means to love someone and come out on the better side of a complicated situation. Relationships can be strained over big or small problems, but just like Rebecca and May, they can be sometimes be solved with just a few tears and conversation.