Gone Are The Marigolds

As soon as I plunged the electric knife into its breast, I sneezed on the turkey. Everyone groaned. Our make-up Fourth of July was off to a great start. 

I grabbed my napkin and glanced at the empty seat we left for Jayden. All I wanted was to have this moment. For three summers it was just Amy, Rose, Pops, and me. But having everyone outside at the table after Jayden left… Well, it almost felt like we were a family again.

I locked eyes with Rose in the next seat over. My sister’s swollen cheeks gleamed with tears; whether from allergies or anger, I couldn’t tell. She blinked them away and nodded, and I wiped the top of the almond-glazed turkey as best I could. We all got the same immune systems anyways.

Seemed like everyone adjusted on their own. Pops shouted grace over the hacking and sneezing. Grandma asked one of the kids to pass the tissue box to wipe the snot from her lip. The kids threw their manners to the wind, elbowing and reaching over each other to grab one for themselves. They knocked the box and the salt shaker over and we all watched the breeze carry the paper and sodium over our sprawling field of wilted marigolds. Amy cut into the kids about as hard as I cut into the bird. We had plenty of salt to pass around, but tissues were a terrible thing to waste.  

Most families share funny stories, catch up on what’s new, argue over nonsense. Auntie Melonni, Pops, Uncle David, Grandma, and other Grandma reminisced about old times: football games, monarch butterflies, farm-grown tomatoes, and bootstraps. The kids boasted about their next soccer game while Amy micromanaged their impulses. Rose and I did not partake. The food was bitter with propensity, our presence tinged with formality.  

Jayden. That was one topic we all danced around. It was as if my older sister never existed.

With Jayden around, Rose and I had more to talk about than crops.

Nowadays, in spring and summer everyone shuffled around with sullen eyes and swollen cheeks, too busy sneezing to speak. Amy always made sure the kids took Benadryl and lathered up with sunscreen bug spray before playing soccer in the fields. 

The kids were antsy to play with their friends since the fires. We prayed for a farmer’s blasphemy: clear skies and fire a hundred fields over. We needed rain for the crops and to keep the next fire at bay. But rain brought the mosquitos and the Glade Fever. Burn from the inside or the outside, pick your poison. The marigolds had kept the bees and butterflies in and the mosquitoes out. Not anymore. The whiteflies followed the mosquitoes and soon enough, humans and tomatoes suffered together. Rose managed to keep the asparagus stable for a while, using a trick Jayden taught her. But that didn’t last long.

Jayden had farmed with mathematical precision. Literally reduced it to a science. She automated a drone to gather footage of the crops every day, used algorithms to track deviations in plant health and harvest yield, and organized placement of all of the companion plants. One time, I caught her drawing maps of the whole farm at three in the morning. Hell, we’d be walking the fields sometimes and Jayden would just pull a few of the best vegetables, just from a glance, to cook later.   

Ordinarily, we’d have tomatoes at the table. There’s nothing like tomatoes drizzled with vinaigrette to go with turkey lunch. My grandmas both had their own recipes (another topic not to be discussed at the table). No matter who asked, no matter the preference, they insisted that the recipes died when our last tomato rotted away. 

The recipes died when the tomatoes died and the tomatoes died when Jayden left. My sister wasn’t one to gloat. She was often right about things and had a weird sense of humor, but there was never any “I told you so’s” coming from her. But brutal honesty, measured composure, and compartmentalized logic punctured egos. Pops had put up with it and acknowledged when he was outmatched. They’d fought time and again over which crops to plant, when to plant them and in what order. They’d butt heads over hard work and smart work, technology and climate, and in the end they’d shake hands and do it Jayden’s way. We all knew Jayden loved the crops, loved living things. The flowers were her favorites. When she completed her reassignment, she wanted to rename herself Marigold.

But Jayden wasn’t infallible. She predicted a bad bout of heat one year. Cost us a bit of money. One mistake was all it took and Dad was back to doing it his way. When the first batch of tomatoes had died, Jayden opened her mouth one too many times. 

Pops, Rose, and I had each held a bruised, brown, smelly tomato in our hands. Tiny worms crawled over their roots. Jayden had her back to us. She looked out over the marigolds, a field of miniature suns that had failed to keep to one side of the field safe. 

“We should hold a funeral.”

Pops channeled the sun’s fury into one withering look. 

“Boy, this ain’t the time for jokes.” 

Cool, calculating Jayden flinched. The wheels turned in her head. I’d never seen it before. She always had a response ready. 

“I-I told you to plant the french Marigolds first!”

They had it out again. Pops was obstinate and unyielding. Jayden relied on facts and sense.

“You give them two months to establish themselves. Then the hybrids. You don’t plant them both at the same time!”

Rose and I watched from the sidelines. But there was something different with Jayden this time: a tremble in her voice. Jayden and Pops argued in circles. 

She was gone by the end of the week. 

Nobody eats field-grown tomatoes anymore. A lot of field-grown almonds though. A crap ton of almonds. Almond syrup, almond butter, almond flour, almond cake. Goddamn almond glaze is the only thing keeping this turkey moist. The only crop not to catch fire. Subsidies or not, everyone wants their fucking almond milk.

Jayden was the real cook. My miserable attempt wasn’t going to give the family back the home they used to know. When Jayden was around, Grandma and other Grandma would sit out back and watch the garden of marigolds they had planted years past. Pops would play with the kids, chasing them around the field and stealing their soccer ball. But Jayden (if that is still her name) went away and took the marigolds with her, and all the fields of summers past. The color faded from the fields and left only the swollen yellow sun and our red, congested faces.

Summer’s still here, but it’s way too hot to play outside anymore. Jayden left, the marigolds left, even the butterflies left. But summer stayed year round, and roasted us better than I roasted this damn bird.