The Descendants

# Chapter 1: The Letter

The tomatoes have opinions about everything this morning.

The big one on the south trellis, the one I've been calling Margaret, because she earned it, has split clean down one side overnight, not from neglect. From abundance. There's been so much rain this week that she swelled past what her skin could hold, and now she's cracked open like she's making a point. The juice runs pink down the stake.

"That's your own fault," I tell her.

She does not respond. She is a tomato.

I kneel between the rows and the soil is warm through my trousers, almost hot, which means the beds have been holding the day's heat well past dawn. Late summer does this. The whole garden does this, actually — holds onto warmth longer than it should, has for years now, ever since the continental chord settled into the bedrock and the hum became something you stop noticing until you notice it again. Like your own pulse.