Potatoes

A group of neighborhood kids pretending to dig for treasure discover my father has been planting potatoes. At first they keep it to themselves, only telling their most trusted friends. Eventually it comes back to me and I deny it. “I think I would know if that were going on,” I say. When I get home I walk into the backyard to check for any unusual plants. I easily find the potatoes and quickly bury them, deeper than before. I wash my hands with the garden hose and cut my fingernails where the dirt has gone too deep. That night I pull out a plastic rosary and pray to God that it wasn’t my father who planted them; it was the family who lived here before us or some bandit. I wake up to hear my parents arguing. Someone told someone told someone that my father had a whole yard of potatoes. And now that everyone knows, my mother is taking whatever she can carry. On her way out, she rustles my hair and gives me a reluctant hug. I beg her to take me with her.

Hours later, I yell at my father. I call him the names I’d saved up over the years for the big fight I wanted to win. He just looks down and pretends to read his sporting magazine. Then he shows me his gloves and we get ready for the harvest.