The Tomato Vine Trellis

"Put the screen away."

I didn't look up. My thumb kept swiping. The glare of the July sun was washing out the cracked glass, but I could still make out the video. A glacier the size of Manhattan was currently falling into the ocean somewhere off Greenland. Or maybe it was Antarctica. The caption was just a bunch of skull emojis and a link to a petition that zero people were going to sign.

"I said, put it away. Now."

Ethan's shadow fell over me, blocking the sun. I blinked, my eyes burning from the sudden shift in light. He was standing over the overturned milk crate I was using as a chair. He looked like a piece of beef jerky that had been left in a dehydrator for ten years. Brown skin baked into deep creases, a faded baseball cap pulled low, a stained white t-shirt clinging to his chest with sweat.

"I am taking my mandatory fifteen-minute break," I said.

"You haven't worked for fifteen minutes," Ethan said.

"I pulled those weeds."

"You pulled three dandelions and then sat down to look at a box of glass."

"It's called staying informed," I said. I tapped the screen. "The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is collapsing. If it stops, Europe freezes and the tropics boil. We have about five years."

Ethan stared at me. He didn't blink. He just reached down and snatched the phone right out of my hand.

"Hey!"

He shoved the phone deep into the front pocket of his canvas overalls. "Europe can freeze tomorrow. Today, the tomatoes need water. Stand up."

I stayed on the crate. The heat index was a hundred and four. The air sitting over the city was stagnant, trapping the exhaust from the interstate two blocks over. It coated the back of my throat with a metallic, greasy film every time I took a breath. This lot was supposed to be an oasis. It was just a half-acre of dirt wedged between two brick apartment buildings, fenced in by chain link that someone had tried to make nice by weaving plastic ribbons through the diamonds.

"This is community service," I said. "It's not a chain gang. You can't take my property."

"Call the cops," Ethan said. He turned his back on me and walked over to a pile of tools leaning against a wooden planter box.

I gritted my teeth. My probation officer had been very clear. Sixty hours of community service at the East Side Community Garden, or I went to juvenile detention for the vandalism charge. I still maintained that spray-painting 'CLIMATE KILLERS' on the side of the local Chase bank was political speech, but the judge disagreed.

Ethan came back. He didn't hand me a shovel. He threw it at my feet. The metal blade clanged against the baked earth.

"Trench needs to be two feet deep," he said. He pointed a calloused finger toward the back of the lot, where a row of raised beds sat wilting under the sun. "From the spigot to the greenhouse. We are laying down the new PVC pipe today."

"Why can't we just use a hose?"

"Because the hose leaks, and water costs money, and the city cuts our pressure in the summer," he said. "Dig."

He walked away, grabbing a pickaxe for himself.

I looked at the shovel. The wooden handle was splintered. I looked at my hands. Clean fingernails. I bent down and picked it up. It was heavy. Heavier than it looked. I dragged it over to the spigot at the front of the lot. The ground here wasn't dirt. It was compacted clay, baked into concrete by three weeks of zero rain.

I drove the blade of the shovel down. It bounced off the dirt, sending a jarring shock up my arms that rattled my teeth.

Ethan laughed from the other end of the lot. A dry, scraping sound.

"You have to use your boot," he called out. "Drive it in with your heel."

I ignored him. I slammed the shovel down again. It chipped off a piece of clay the size of a quarter. I did it again. My palms were already sweating, slipping against the wood. I swung the shovel like an axe.

"Stop," Ethan said.

He was suddenly next to me. He grabbed the handle of the shovel. His grip was like a vice.

"You are going to break my tool. And you are going to break your back."

"I'm digging the trench," I snapped, tugging the shovel. He didn't let go.

"You are throwing a temper tantrum with sharp metal," he said. "Look at me."

I glared at him.

"You want to save the world," he said. "That's what you told the judge, right? You were raising awareness."

"It's true."

"You can't save the world if you don't know how to work the dirt," he said. He let go of the shovel. He pointed to his own feet. Heavy work boots. "Put the blade on the ground. Step on the lip. Push down with your weight, not your arms. Then lever it back."

He watched me. I hated him right then. I placed the blade on the clay. I stepped on the metal lip. I leaned my weight onto my right leg. The shovel bit into the earth, sinking an inch.

"Again," he said.

I stepped again. It went deeper.

"Now pull back."

I yanked the handle backward. A solid chunk of earth cracked and lifted loose.

"Keep going," Ethan said. "Fifty feet to the greenhouse."

He walked back to his end of the trench and raised his pickaxe.

I dug. The sun beat down on the back of my neck. Within ten minutes, my t-shirt was soaked through. Within twenty, a blister the size of a dime had formed at the base of my thumb. The pain was sharp and bright. I kept going. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me stop.

I jammed the shovel in. Stepped. Levered. Tossed the dirt to the side.

Jam. Step. Lever. Toss.

My mind usually raced. A constant stream of doom, of articles, of statistics. Carbon parts per million. Deforestation rates. Ocean acidification. But after forty minutes of slamming steel into baked clay, the static in my head started to break up. My universe shrank down to the three feet of dirt directly in front of me. The rhythm of the work took over. My shoulders ached. My lower back burned. But the trench was growing. A straight, shallow line moving steadily toward the greenhouse.

I hit something hard.

The shovel clanged. I figured it was a rock. I dug around the edges, trying to pry it loose. It wasn't a rock. It was a piece of buried trash. I knelt down and wiped the dirt away. It was a crumpled, thick piece of paper, folded into a tight square. The bright neon yellow color caught the sun.

I pulled it out of the ground. The edges were damp, but the paper was coated in plastic. A laminated sheet.

I unfolded it.

The bold black letters at the top read: NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE.

I wiped the sweat out of my eyes with the back of my wrist. I read the text beneath the header. It was dense legal jargon, but a few words jumped out.

ZONING BOARD.

TRANSFER OF DEED.

APEX DEVELOPMENT GROUP.

LUXURY RESIDENTIAL HIGH-RISE.

And the address. The address of the community garden.

I looked up. Ethan was at the far end of the lot, his back to me, swinging the pickaxe in a slow, rhythmic arc.

"Ethan!" I yelled.

He didn't stop.

I dropped the shovel and jogged over to him, the crumpled paper clutched in my fist. "Ethan, look at this."

He brought the pickaxe down. He leaned on the handle, breathing heavy. Sweat dripped from his nose into the dirt. "What."

I held out the paper. "I just dug this up by the spigot. Someone buried it."

He didn't take it. He just looked at it. His face didn't change. The deep lines around his mouth just tightened a fraction of an inch.

"I know," he said.

"You know?" I stared at him. "This is a demolition notice. The city sold the lot."

"They sold it three months ago," he said quietly.

"And you didn't tell anyone?"

"I fought it," he said. His voice was raspy. "I went to the council meetings. I filed the appeals. They ignored them. They said the neighborhood needs economic revitalization."

"They're going to pave over the garden. To build a luxury condo."

"Yes."

"When?"

Ethan looked up at the sky, squinting against the glare. "Notice said August first. We have two weeks."

"Two weeks?" I grabbed my head. "Then why are we digging a trench for a new water line? What is the point of putting down pipe if there's going to be a bulldozer here in fourteen days?"

Ethan reached out and took the neon paper from my hand. He folded it neatly, once, twice, and slipped it into his pocket next to my phone.

"Because the tomatoes need water today," he said.

He picked up the pickaxe and turned back to the trench.

The Collapse

I didn't pick up the shovel again right away. I stood there, watching him work. The heat radiating off the ground was making the air visibly warp and shimmer.

"You're crazy," I said.

He didn't answer. He just brought the pickaxe down. Thwack. A chunk of dirt flew up.

"Ethan. Listen to me. If they have the deed, they have the law. The cops will show up, they'll lock the gates, and they'll tear down the greenhouse. Everything you planted this spring is going to end up in a landfill."

Thwack.

"Give me my phone," I demanded. "I need to tell people. I can post the notice. I can tag the city council. If we get enough people to re-share it, they might face pressure to halt the development."

Ethan stopped swinging. He turned to look at me. His chest was heaving. He looked pale. Not white, but a strange, washed-out grey beneath his dark skin.

"Nobody cares about your posts," he said.

"That's boomer logic," I said, stepping closer. "Digital mobilization works. We can get a thousand signatures by midnight."

"A thousand signatures won't water the seeds," he said. He raised the pickaxe again. His arms were trembling. I noticed it for the first time. The slight shake in his wrists as he held the heavy wooden handle.

"You're avoiding reality," I said.

"You live in a machine," he shot back. He swung the pickaxe.

It was a bad swing. Off-balance. The heavy iron head hit the side of the trench at a weird angle. The handle twisted violently in his grip.

Ethan let out a sharp gasp. His knees buckled.

He didn't fall backward. He just crumpled straight down into the dirt, his hands clutching his chest.

"Ethan!"

I lunged forward, dropping to my knees beside him. The ground burned against my bare skin.

"Hey. Hey, look at me." I grabbed his shoulder. His shirt was completely drenched, but his skin felt dry. Too dry.

His eyes were half-open, rolling back slightly. His breathing was fast and shallow.

Panic flared in my chest, cold and sharp despite the heat. I patted down his pockets frantically, digging past the folded yellow notice, searching for my phone. My fingers brushed the glass screen. I yanked it out and jammed my thumb against the power button.

The screen stayed black.

"Come on," I muttered. I pressed it harder.

A red battery icon flashed on the screen. Dead. The heat had drained it completely.

"Damn it!"

I threw the phone into the dirt. I grabbed Ethan by the shoulders and pulled him upright. He was heavy, dead weight.

"Ethan, you have to get up. We need to get you into the shade."

He mumbled something I couldn't understand. His head lolled to the side.

I hooked my arms under his armpits. I planted my boots in the dirt and pulled. My leg muscles screamed. I dragged him out of the trench, moving backward toward the greenhouse. It was only twenty feet away, but it felt like a mile. The sun beat down like a physical weight pressing on my skull.

I got him under the plastic awning of the greenhouse. It was hot in there, but it blocked the direct UV rays. I propped him up against the wooden frame of a raised bed.

I scrambled back out into the sun, running to the spigot. I grabbed the green plastic watering can sitting nearby, shoved it under the faucet, and twisted the rusted metal handle. Warm, rusty water sputtered out, then ran clear. I filled it to the brim and ran back to the greenhouse.

I splashed the water directly onto Ethan's face.

He gasped, his eyes snapping open. He coughed, violently, leaning forward.

"Drink," I ordered. I tipped the spout of the watering can toward his mouth.

He grabbed it with shaking hands and gulped down the water. It spilled down his chin, soaking his shirt. He drank for a long time, then pushed it away, leaning his head back against the wood.

We sat there for five minutes. The only sound was his ragged breathing and the distant roar of the highway.

"Heat exhaustion," I said. My voice sounded thin. "You need a hospital."

"No," he rasped. "Just need to sit."

"You almost died in a ditch for a garden that's going to be destroyed anyway."

He turned his head to look at me. His eyes were bloodshot, but the focus was coming back.

"It's not destroyed today," he said.

I stared at him. The sheer, immovable stubbornness of the man. It made no sense. It violated every law of logic I understood. When the system is rigged, you expose the system. You don't keep playing by its rules. You don't keep digging the trench.

But sitting there, looking at his shaking hands, a weird feeling twisted in my gut. He wasn't doing it because he thought he was going to win. He was doing it because the dirt was his responsibility. The plants were his responsibility.

I looked out at the half-finished trench.

The spigot was leaking slightly. A small puddle of mud was forming around it.

I stood up.

"Where are you going?" Ethan asked.

I didn't answer. I walked out of the greenhouse, back into the blistering sun. I walked over to where Ethan had dropped the pickaxe.

I picked it up.

It was heavy. The wood was slick with his sweat.

I stood over the trench, lined up my feet the way he had showed me, and brought the pickaxe down.

Thwack.

I pulled it loose. I swung again.

Thwack.

I didn't look at my phone sitting dead in the dirt. I didn't think about the ocean currents or the luxury condos. I thought about the heavy iron head of the tool. I thought about the exact angle it needed to hit the clay to break it apart. I thought about the water that needed to flow from the spigot to the greenhouse.

I dug for two hours. My hands blistered, popped, and bled. I didn't stop until the trench connected the pipes.

Yellow Iron

The ground started vibrating before I heard the engine.

It was a Tuesday morning, five days after Ethan's collapse. The heatwave hadn't broken. It had settled over the neighborhood like a suffocating blanket. I was kneeling in the dirt near the front gate, carefully tying the heavy, fruit-laden branches of the heirloom tomatoes to wooden stakes with strips of old cotton rag.

The water from our new trench was working. The soil around the roots was dark and damp.

Then the vibration hit my knees.

I stood up, wiping sweat off my forehead with the back of my wrist.

Turning onto the narrow residential street was a flatbed truck. It was massive, belching black diesel smoke from twin stacks. Strapped to the back of the flatbed was a bright yellow Caterpillar bulldozer.

Behind the flatbed came a white pickup truck with the Apex Development Group logo slapped on the side doors.

I checked my watch. August first wasn't for another week.

"Ethan!" I yelled over my shoulder.

He was inside the greenhouse, checking the ventilation fans. He stepped out, wiping his hands on a rag. He saw the trucks. He stopped moving.

The flatbed hissed, the air brakes locking as it parked directly in front of the garden's chain-link gate. The white pickup parked behind it. Two men in neon safety vests and hard hats got out of the pickup. One of them held a clipboard.

I walked toward the gate. Ethan walked faster, passing me.

"Can I help you?" Ethan asked through the chain link. His voice was dangerously calm.

The man with the clipboard walked up. He had a tight military haircut and sunglasses that reflected the garden back at me.

"Ethan Hayes?" the man asked.

"That's me."

"I'm Dave. Site manager for Apex. We're here to begin the preliminary clearing of the lot."

"Notice said August first," Ethan said.

Dave looked at his clipboard. "City expedited the permits. We got the green light to clear the surface structures today. The heavy excavation starts next week. We need you to vacate the premises."

"Expedited permits require a seventy-two-hour posting on the physical property," Ethan said. "You didn't post anything."

"It was filed electronically," Dave said, his tone shifting into the flat, bored register of a guy who just wants to do his job and go home. "Look, buddy. I don't make the laws. I just run the crew. The ramp is coming down. We're taking the fence down first. Step back."

Dave signaled the flatbed driver. The hydraulic whine of the ramp lowering pierced the hot air.

"You're not bringing that machine in here," Ethan said.

"I really am," Dave said. "If you want to argue, call the city. But you need to clear out right now."

The driver of the flatbed climbed up into the cab of the bulldozer. The diesel engine roared to life. It was deafening. The sound shook the dirt under my feet.

Ethan grabbed the chain-link gate with both hands.

"Marianne," he yelled over the noise. "Go inside. Get your bag."

"I'm not leaving," I yelled back.

"Get out of here!"

The bulldozer rolled off the flatbed. Its metal treads chewed up the asphalt of the street, leaving deep white scars. The blade in front was easily ten feet wide. It turned, facing the gate. Facing us.

Dave stepped back, waving the bulldozer forward.

The machine lurched toward the fence.

Ethan didn't move. He stood directly behind the metal gate, his hands gripping the wire.

"Ethan!" I screamed.

The bulldozer's blade hit the chain link.

It didn't even slow down. The metal fence groaned, bowed backward, and snapped. The concrete footings holding the posts ripped out of the ground. Ethan was thrown backward into the dirt, narrowly missing the heavy steel post as it crashed down.

The bulldozer rolled over the flattened fence, crushing it into the soil. It was inside the garden.

The driver revved the engine, the blade hovering two feet off the ground, aiming straight for the rows of tomatoes we had just staked.

I didn't think. I just moved.

I stepped past Ethan, who was scrambling to his feet. I walked directly into the path of the bulldozer.

"Hey!" Dave shouted from the sidewalk. "Get the hell out of the way!"

I stood in the dirt, right between the massive steel blade and the first row of green vines. The heat radiating off the machine's engine was like an oven. The diesel exhaust coated my tongue.

The driver hit the brakes. The machine stopped abruptly, jerking forward on its treads. The blade was less than four feet from my chest.

Through the dusty glass of the cab, I saw the driver throwing his hands up, shouting something I couldn't hear over the engine.

"Move!" Dave was running into the lot now.

I reached into my pocket. I pulled out my phone. I had charged it last night. I looked at it for a second. I could record this. I could go live on Instagram. I could show the world what they were doing.

But the camera lens felt tiny. The screen felt fragile. It felt entirely useless against the massive, heavy reality of the yellow iron sitting in front of me.

I tossed the phone to the side. It landed in the soft dirt next to a tomato plant.

I crossed my arms over my chest, planted my boots shoulder-width apart, and stared directly at the cab of the bulldozer.

Dave ran up to me, grabbing my arm. "Listen to me, little girl. You are trespassing on private property. I will call the police, and you will be arrested."

I ripped my arm out of his grip. "I'm already on probation," I yelled in his face. "I don't care!"

Behind Dave, I saw movement on the street. The noise of the fence snapping and the diesel engine roaring had echoed down the block.

Mrs. Ashten, the lady who lived on the third floor of the brick building next door, stepped out onto her fire escape. She looked down, saw the bulldozer inside the lot, and started yelling.

Luis, the guy who ran the bodega on the corner, came walking down the sidewalk, holding a broom.

Within two minutes, there were ten people standing on the sidewalk. Then twenty.

I didn't move. My legs were shaking, but I locked my knees.

"Marianne!"

I turned my head slightly. My friend Willa was pushing through the crowd. She had her phone out, held high on a pink plastic ring-light stick. She had the front-facing camera on.

"Oh my god, guys, you won't believe what's happening," Willa said to her phone, walking onto the dirt. "My friend Marianne is literally standing in front of a tank right now. Look at this."

She shoved the camera toward my face.

The anger that hit me was so sudden and violent it made my vision blur.

"Put that away!" I screamed at her.

Willa blinked, lowering the stick slightly. "What? I'm getting you views. This is going viral."

"I don't care about the views!" I shouted. The engine of the bulldozer dropped to a low idle, making my voice carry over the lot. I pointed at the raised beds behind me. "Look at the dirt! Look at what they're crushing! Put the stupid phone down and stand next to me!"

Willa stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

But Luis didn't. He walked past Willa, stepping over the flattened chain link fence. He walked right up to the bulldozer, stood next to me, and crossed his arms.

Then Mrs. Ashten walked up. She was wearing a housecoat and slippers. She stood on my other side.

Then a guy I didn't know, a guy in a postal uniform. Then two teenagers holding skateboards.

They poured out of the sweltering apartments. They didn't pull out their phones. They saw me standing in the dirt, and they walked into the dirt with me.

Within five minutes, there was a solid wall of human bodies standing shoulder-to-shoulder, completely blocking the bulldozer from advancing toward the greenhouse. A massive human chain, sweating in the morning sun, breathing in the diesel exhaust.

Dave stood in the gap between the bulldozer and the crowd. He took his hard hat off and wiped his bald head with a handkerchief. He looked at the crowd. He looked at me.

He pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt.

The Nest

The standoff lasted an hour.

The driver eventually cut the engine of the bulldozer. The sudden silence in the lot was heavy, broken only by the low murmur of the crowd and the distant hum of traffic. The heat was becoming unbearable. The sun was directly overhead, baking the back of my neck. Sweat stung my eyes, but I didn't blink. I kept my eyes locked on Dave.

He was pacing back and forth near the flattened gate, talking frantically into his cell phone.

Ethan walked up beside me. He had a smudge of grease on his cheek from where he had fallen. He handed me a plastic bottle of warm water.

"Drink," he ordered.

I drank. It tasted like plastic and copper, but I gulped it down.

"The cops are coming," Ethan said quietly, looking at Dave. "He called dispatch. They'll send a squad car to clear us out."

"There are forty of us," I said, looking down the line of neighbors. "They can't arrest everyone."

"They don't have to," Ethan said. "They just have to arrest you and me. The rest will scatter."

I looked down at the dirt. My boots were caked in mud from the irrigation leak. Near the toe of my left boot, a patch of native milkweed we had planted last month was clinging to life. The purple flowers were slightly wilted, but the broad green leaves were intact.

Something caught my eye. A flash of silver and rust color.

I crouched down.

"What are you doing?" Ethan asked.

I leaned closer to the milkweed. Resting on the underside of a large leaf was a butterfly. It was small, with wings the color of burnt orange, edged in a thick black border with tiny white spots.

I recognized it instantly. Not from the internet. From Ethan.

On my second day of community service, he had made me read a battered, water-stained field guide to local pollinators. He had pointed to a specific page, tapping the glossy paper with his thick finger. If you see this one, you don't touch it. You don't spray near it. You let it eat.

I looked closer. At the base of the stem, hidden in the crux of the leaves, was a tiny, pale green chrysalis hanging by a delicate silk thread.

I stood up fast. My head spun for a second.

I walked straight toward Dave.

He saw me coming and put his hand up. "Back off, kid. Police are two minutes away."

"Call your boss," I said.

"I am the boss."

"Call the Apex corporate office. Right now."

Dave laughed. A dry, harsh sound. "You think you're important? You're a trespasser."

"I want you to come look at something," I said. I grabbed the sleeve of his neon vest.

He jerked his arm back. "Don't touch me."

"Look at the plant!" I yelled, pointing back to the milkweed. My voice cracked. "Just walk five feet and look at it before the cops get here."

Something in my face must have registered, because Dave frowned. He put his phone in his pocket and took three steps forward.

I pointed down at the leaf.

"A bug," Dave said flatly. "Congratulations."

"It's an Uncas Skipper," I said. My heart was hammering against my ribs. "It's on the federal endangered species list. And that," I pointed to the base of the stem, "is a nesting site."

Dave stared at me.

"I know the law," I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth. "Ethan taught me the zoning codes. This lot isn't just a garden. It's a registered pollinator habitat. Under the state Environmental Protection Act, section 404, you cannot bulldoze a documented nesting site of an endangered species without a biological survey and a clearance from the Department of Natural Resources."

Dave looked down at the butterfly. It slowly opened and closed its burnt-orange wings.

"You don't have a survey," I said. "You expedited the permits through the city council. The DNR doesn't know you're here. If that bulldozer crushes this plant, I will personally take the photo to the state attorney general, and Apex will face a federal fine of fifty thousand dollars per violation. It will tie up this development in court for three years."

I had no idea if the fine was fifty thousand dollars. But the name of the butterfly was right. And the law was right.

Dave stared at the chrysalis. He rubbed his jaw. The sweat was pouring down his face now.

He looked back at the massive yellow bulldozer. He looked at the crowd of angry, sweating neighbors. He looked at the butterfly.

He pulled his cell phone back out. He dialed a number and walked away, talking low and fast, turning his back to us.

I stood perfectly still.

Ten minutes later, a police cruiser pulled up behind the white pickup. Two officers got out.

Dave walked over to them. He talked to them for a long time. He kept shaking his head and pointing at his clipboard.

Then, he walked back to the flatbed truck.

He waved his hand in a circular motion at the driver sitting in the bulldozer cab.

The diesel engine roared back to life. The crowd tensed, leaning forward.

But the bulldozer didn't move forward. The driver pulled the heavy hydraulic levers, and the massive machine shifted into reverse. The treads clanked loudly as it backed slowly out of the lot, rolling over the flattened fence, and climbed back onto the flatbed ramp.

The crowd let out a collective breath.

Dave walked up to the edge of the property line. He didn't look at me. He looked at Ethan.

"My boss is calling the DNR," Dave said. "We're standing down for forty-eight hours until we get a biologist out here to confirm the nest. But if that bug is gone by tomorrow, we're tearing this place down to the bedrock."

He turned, got into his white pickup, and slammed the door.

The flatbed pulled away from the curb, a plume of black smoke rising into the humid air.

The street was quiet again.

The crowd didn't cheer. It was too hot to cheer. Luis clapped me on the shoulder as he walked past, heading back to his bodega. Mrs. Ashten nodded at Ethan and shuffled back toward her apartment. Slowly, the human wall broke apart, melting back into the brick buildings to find shade and fans.

I stood in the dirt, watching the street empty out.

My hands were shaking. The adrenaline was crashing out of my system, leaving me hollow and exhausted. My legs felt like lead.

I turned around.

Ethan was standing near the tomato vines. He was holding two large, heavily bruised red tomatoes. He wiped them off on his dirty shirt.

He held one out to me.

I walked over and took it. It was warm from the sun. The skin was slightly split near the top, revealing the bright, wet red flesh inside.

I looked down at the dirt near my boots. My phone was still lying there, half-buried in the soil. The screen was black. It looked like a useless piece of trash.

I bent down, picked it up, and shoved it deep into my backpack sitting near the greenhouse. I didn't check it.

I walked over to the wooden planter box. I sat down on the edge.

Ethan came over and sat down next to me. The heat was still brutal, but under the thin shade of the plastic awning, it was manageable.

We didn't speak.

I took a bite of the tomato. The juice was hot, acidic, and sweet. It ran down my chin and dripped onto my dirty shirt. I didn't wipe it away. I just took another bite.

Ethan ate his in silence, staring out at the new irrigation trench we had dug.

Tomorrow, we would have to fix the fence.