Harvesting Ashwood Minnesota 2037

  Harvesting Ashwood

  Minnesota 2037

  Cynthia Kraack

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  Saint Cloud, Minnesota

  Dedication

  For my family.

  Chapter One

  For a decade the great gray house known as Ashwood had opened its gates for survivors of the Second Great Depression. They walked through the tall front doors carrying what remained of their life in boxes and backpacks. In its basement storerooms, they traded mismatched remnants of clothing for new pants and shirts and sturdy shoes. The kitchen set out a small meal to fill their shrunken bellies with food from the estate’s greenhouses and fields. A mentoring adult walked them to a dorm where children slept in safety between clean sheets.

  I was a survivor who carried my own bag through those same gates and stood in the dark outside these doors. Though the seven years since I arrived have treated me well, I could never forget the darkness of the time the city kids tagged g2d or simply D. While adults coming through our gates no longer looked as desperate, the children removed from their families and delivered to the secure haven of Ashwood claimed my heart.

  A house with almost three dozen children never truly sleeps. Many of Ashwood’s residents feared the dark, myself included, so dim lights punctuated its halls. Each night the adults of Ashwood took turns resting near the residence’s center where a child might wander, listening for homesick tears, offering a glass of clean water, or smoothing a blanket. Unless the child was my stepdaughter, Phoebe. She called, “Mom,” and I was the only one who could ease her from terror to sleep.

  “I’ll take care of her, David. Don’t worry.”

  I touched my husband’s arm as Phoebe’s voice came through the monitor, knowing her suffering caused him deep distress. Across a cool hall I sprinted to her room. She sat upright in bed, eyes open and unseeing, mouth open, hands clawing at her blanket. I brought my arms down around her rigid body, rocking her as carefully as a package stamped fragile.

  “You’re okay, Phoebe. It’s Mom holding you, loved one.” Words flowed in the darkness, words I knew she might not hear, would not remember. But the words built a rhythm that guided my hands as I rocked long minutes until Phoebe relaxed onto my chest.

  “Mom.” She whispered one word, swallowed. Her little-girl voice traveled along a dry throat, sounded painful. “I’m thirsty.”

  I found the water glass kept next to her bed and brought it to her lips. She sipped then rested again. I put the glass down and continued rocking her until she slept.

  This episode felt different to me, more unsettling. I checked our sons’ room before settling in the kitchen. With no one needing my attention, I used my sleepless time to review production numbers for Ashwood’s thousands of acres of fields, commercial greenhouses, and barns.

  “Annie, what are you doing?” David’s Midwestern-accented tenor slipped across the kitchen’s metal and stone surfaces. “Come to bed. It’s almost three.” By the clarity of his words I knew he hadn’t slept either since Phoebe’s screams.

  “You startled me.” I saved my work, shut down the data pad. “I couldn’t settle after calming Phoebe and thought the quiet might help me untangle the dairy numbers.” He held out a hand, helped me to my feet. “And you should be asleep. That 6:00 a.m. transport is only three hours off.”

  “There’ll be time for sleeping on the jet. I’d rather be awake with you.” After seven years together, our steps matched as we walked, his six-foot-four stride adjusted to my five-foot-seven movement. A heavy man when we first met, David was now muscular and healthy from Ashwood’s physical demands including a few hours of field work each week. “I want to talk about this trip, Anne. I think we’re about to land deep in a South American conflict.”

  “Will you be in danger?”

  “Not this time.”

  I heard the implication that there would be a next time. The only question was when.

  “Come to bed.” David held up the sheets. “We might not sleep, but I’d rather leave remembering your body by my side.” In the dim room his dark hair made his face ghostly. “That was a bad spell. Is Phoebe all right?”

  I settled next to him, placed my head on his shoulder. “She was sitting upright when I got to her room, eyes wide open.” I waited for him to ask the next question. He didn’t. “We’re doing everything we can, David. It just seems like the terrors are happening more often.”

  “I worry that the mental imbalance of Tia’s family is in Phoebe’s genes.” He pulled me closer, the scent of his body as familiar as my own. “The Bureau of Human Capital Management’s therapist didn’t respond when I asked her that question.”

  We parented Phoebe with different expectations. He watched for signs of potential problems. I fed her creative spirit. “Tia was certainly unsure about becoming a mother. Nurse Kim handed you this little baby while Tia cried.” David hadn’t looked at his first wife as he accepted their daughter. “The first thing I saw was that this tiny baby had her mother’s beautiful rosebud mouth.”

  “Her mother was crazy, Annie. You knew that.”

  “We didn’t know that, David.” This was a discussion we had had too many times. “Phoebe is just a little girl. She won’t be eight for another two months.”

  He tapped the window coverings’ control. Cut into a hill, the western residence wing overlooked the back edge of one apple orchard and an acre of oak trees. I could barely see the safety lights that illuminated Ashwood’s fences.

  “Let’s enjoy the view of the woods.” Jostling us both, he bent an arm under his head. “Forgetting the cost, our tree wind stand was a brilliant idea.” I listened to his breathing, how it changed as he spoke. “Remember the snowstorm the first day we met?”

  I was the Bureau’s new estate matron greeting the government intelligentsia couple assigned to live at Ashwood. He was insistent about going over estate plans, and I resented his behavior. He tended to recall that day with a different set of memories.

  “If we’re going to be awake, tell me why you’re worried about this trip to Paraguay.” Maybe the lack of sleep goosed my anxiety about David’s assignment.

  “Because I don’t know what’s going on in South America. The Department of Energy has only a handful of small projects in Paraguay.” He rubbed his forehead, then swiped a large hand over his face. “Things don’t add up and no one will talk.” I felt his chest deflate as he yawned.

  “Why did you get called?”

  “Damned if I know. The assignment docket calls for an adviser which doesn’t jive with the project’s budget.”

  Between the tree stand and the residence, I saw a handful of coyotes moving in a swift, graceful line from the estate’s eastern fences toward the stables. They’d be disappointed unless rabbits wandered across their path. Morning security video would send someone to check our fencing. Securing Ashwood against the uninvited, whether human or wild, claimed daily priority.

  “You’ll be home in a week, in time for your father’s birthday. The boys think it is pretty special that Grandpa Paul is turning seventy.” I yawned, snuggled my body close to his. “Do you mind if we sleep? I think the night just caught up with me.”

  I felt his shoulder relax as my eyes shut. Heard the alarm wake him too soon, let him ease out of bed. I stayed behind until the second alarm sounded to start my day. Tile floors cooled my feet as I stood up, made me remember to tell Sarah that winter area rugs should be taken out of storage.

  While he finished dressing, I washed my face and thought how the years of estate living kept us strong. David’s forty-five-year-old body looked lean under his traveling suit. He wore his hair close cut, less for maint
enance than to deny its thinning. Before he left our room, I ran my hand across his head and kissed his lips.

  “There’s nothing to worry about here. We’ll be fine,” I said, holding my voice steady. I kissed him again, following his lead in how long we lingered. “Take care of yourself.”

  Chapter Two

  Waiting for coffee to finish brewing, I watched the first estate transport arrive from the Twin Cities metro area. On a muggy September morning, six men, fourteen women, twelve children, five toddlers, and three infants entered our day-labor gate. Across the acreage of Ashwood and Giant Pines, fields required threshing, cows needed milking, kitchen gardens hung heavy with ripe crops. Twice as many adults were needed for field or animal care physical labor, half as many children could be helpful with light labor around the residence, greenhouses, or gardens. The infants and babies would be a burden on our nursery.

  Mothers headed toward the daycare center. All others proceeded to the harvest season dining hall. In spite of the heat, giant pots of oatmeal waited on the stove top. Family, staff, and laborers would work fueled with the same foods. I poured my only cup of brew for what appeared to be the start of a hot day.

  “Good morning, Ms. Anne.” Cook Jeremiah carried a bowl of fresh berries from the kitchen’s east wall storage room. “Thought these would be good for the residence dining room. Field Manager Magda provided early apples for the outdoor workers.”

  I filched a few berries as he passed. “How is our canned goods inventory?” I knew the answer in numbers but depended on our food expert to translate jars into meals.

  “We’re holding our own for three, maybe four months. If I can find six workers next week, we’ll push that out twelve weeks.” He stirred the oatmeal. “If not, we’ll use what we can of the gardens’ harvest, freeze extra, and add about six weeks to the inventory.”

  “We’ll find a way to get you that labor, Cook. If we have to pull kids from school, I’ll take full responsibility.” I held up a hand knowing he would protest food processing with a kitchen of child workers. “You know we have at least three women with solid kitchen experience in our day laborers under Sarah’s supervision.”

  “Stuff works out.” The nasal pitch of Jeremiah’s voice combined with his Minnesota upbringing stretched out the o sound. “These folks must have been in line for the five o’clock transport. Not easy for the women with kids.”

  “Some days I regret opening up a day care center.” I only half-meant my comment, but during this string of days of too many dependents accompanying less-than-experienced laborers, I worried that the estate needed to make changes. Government offices, cutting staff in deference to the growth of private sector companies, forced people unaccustomed to physical work in line for day labor opportunities in fields and factories.

  I reached for real cream, poured it in my coffee. “You weren’t here when we opened the center to expand the workforce from Lakeville and Burnsville. Now we attract too many city people without field or kitchen experience.”

  “The local transport will bring our regulars in a half hour.” He washed the berries with gentle hands and shook water from the colander. “Ashwood won’t lose its regulars to munitions or devices factory work.”

  “If we can keep pay competitive and share food production with employees, I think you’ll be right, Cook.” I scooped a small dish of oatmeal for myself and moistened the cereal with milk. “The only breakfast food stored in this kitchen when I arrived was oatmeal.”

  Jeremiah extended a small dish of berries. I balanced it on top of my coffee mug. “We’ve come back full circle. Lately managing Ashwood has been like building a house from sand.” I made sure to smile at this young cook who would have known hunger, but not how to manage a kitchen during the early years after the D. “I’ll take breakfast to my office. Have a good day.”

  I turned right as I left the kitchen, walked through the residence’s original foyer, and into the glass walkway connecting our home to an office building constructed by the DOE. David mimicked its attractive fieldstone and brick exterior to warm the grim gray exterior of our home, a former government residence.

  Through the glass I noticed small pieces of the stucco flaking into soil behind the landscaping shrubs. Built a decade earlier to be utilitarian, the structure proved difficult to maintain, much less beautify. David painted our tall front doors bright red, and we planted gardens of colorful flowers to mark the building as a home. While the surrounding greenhouses, fields, and stables showed prosperity, the original structure suggested the possibility of a different story. Each year the government drew back more support, and no small private business could find the kind of money needed to correct aging public work construction.

  “Ms. Anne.” A young resident worker approached from behind.

  “Yes, Antwone?”

  “There’s a lady in the foods.” He took a breath as if the minimally cooler air of the residence provided great relief. “She wants to meet you. A first-timer called Smithson with a boy. Not a kid used to working. I can tell them.”

  “How old is he?” I’d had few interactions with Antwone. His stubborn continuation of street mannerisms had grown annoying, particularly in school where he spent most of his class time showing great disinterest or even beating rhythms on a table.

  “Old enough to work.” Magda was the one who found two knives in the one bag Antwone brought to Ashwood. Now, the boy who needed almost three days of sleep before we could begin to acclimate him to light duty in the kitchen showed this Smithson boy no sympathy. “Maybe ’leven years old. He missin’ teeth. Don’t look like he lost them fighting.”

  “What does the woman look like?” I could tell he liked being a messenger, his scrawny chest puffed out and his hands flew in time with his words.

  “White. Red-brown hair. Kind of like you.” He stopped. “How old are you, Ms. Anne?”

  “Why is that important?”

  “She might be the same age, but I din’t know what that is.”

  “Thank you, Antwone.”

  Eyebrows raised, he looked me up and down, more like a teenager than an eight-year-old who should be thinking about long division. Over a hundred children moved through Ashwood’s halls in my seven years owning the estate. Maybe the same number of adults worked somewhere on the estate over the course of a year’s production. None carried the possible upset of a woman and boy named Smithson.

  “Tell her I’ll be in the small dining room in an hour.”

  “Sure thing, Ms. Anne.” He nodded as if testing my direction against his own sense of protocol. “What about the kid?”

  “The boy is here to work?”

  “Last I saw he was eating oatmeal and looking like he might puke.”

  “Did this woman ask for me to see both of them?”

  Antwone’s eyes sparkled, as if we were having a fun talk. “Can’t say that. So I’ll tell her that she’s supposed to be with you in the small dining room in an hour. No kid.” He turned, feet ready to race back to the stranger.

  “Antwone.”

  He stopped, slightly turned, didn’t say a word. For a moment I wondered why we’d finished a conversation bereft of any protocol and now I felt a need to make sure this child had some level of understanding of Bureau of Human Capital Management’s expected behavior. Maybe the swagger Antwone affected each time he left the kitchen bothered me.

  “You’ve been here four months, Antwone. You’re a bright worker. But you have to remember simple protocol. Let’s take your leaving from the top.”

  Young enough to take his worker status for granted, he turned toward me. I didn’t choose to see his resentment. Living away from home and bending to government protocols were big challenges to young city kids used to making their own way while parents worked long hours. “I don’t mean disrespect, Ms. Anne.”

  “I believe you. And I know you understand that we have to help prepare you for your next assignment.” I forced a small smile, hoping to show Antwone encouragement whil
e my thoughts flew to a woman named Smithson. “Next time you’ll remember.”

  He bowed his head slightly and rolled his eyes. Then left without even a head tip of respect. I ignored the slight, turned, and stared out the long windowed hallway as if I could see the Smithson woman and her boy. It had been over ten years since I had seen the child.

  Chapter Three

  The DOE office building housed David, his team of five engineers, and a research laboratory. For eight years David’s spacious office had overlooked the side orchards. Only twenty months remained in his government service requirement, and then the DOE identity chip buried under his left shoulder would be removed. I hoped to catch him and talk about the Smithson woman before he left.

  Instead of doing his traditional last minute clearing of his desk, David sat reading.

  “Jet departure has been rescheduled for this afternoon.” He looked up the moment I stepped into his office. “So I was reading an opinion piece about the challenges of returning government revenues to a tax-based system from our current fees schedules.” A topic we often discussed. “You have an interesting perspective on the subject. Maybe you should write a piece.” I still carried my breakfast, needed a place to set the cup and bowl down. “Something wrong? You look shaky.”

  Stepping into the space with his precious collections of old baseball hats, athletic team mugs, and family pictures, I put my things on his table. “There’s a woman named Smithson in the day-labor group. She wants to see me.”

  I watched David process the Smithson name. He rubbed his right cheek, tongue moving inside his mouth in time with his hand. “You were surrogate for a couple with that name.”

  Retention of personal details ranked high in David’s strengths. His parents now lived with us, and I briefly knew his first wife, but all the people from my past were merely names and stories. “She has a boy with her who is about the same age as the baby I delivered.” We looked at each other. “Possibly not a coincidence.”