The Roots of the Olive Tree Read Free

lunch.”
    “The pickers did a good job this year. The Lindseys said their crew pulled down a ton an acre and we got at least that,” Bets said.
    Anna didn’t agree. “There’s a lot of picking left to do.”
    Bets sighed and took the bait. “Didn’t they strip it clean enough for you? I know Benny hired that new foreman, but he’s Diego’s son, and you know he’d been out with his daddy in the Lindseys’ fields since he could walk.”
    Anna looked at the funnel that fed the small handpress they kept on the porch. She needed another basket of olives to fill it. “Pickers didn’t do any worse than any other year. Definitely no better than the year all our men were at war and the harvest was left to the women and children.”
    “Daddy always said women made the best pickers. What’s that old proverb?” Bets asked.
    Anna grinned as she spoke. “ ‘In the olive grove you’ve got to be wise in the feet and wild in the head.’ ” She smiled thinking about her own father and how he’d always claimed that women were the only souls wild enough in the head to pick a tree clean. He never meant it as a compliment, but Anna took it as such.
    Callie shook her head. “I never did understand that. I think you ought to let the pickers use those machines. We could probably get a ton and a quarter an acre.” With this statement, her granddaughter had started an old argument, and Anna understood Callie raised it mostly for the conversation.
    “The noise would kill me and the pounding is likely to kill the trees.” Anna smiled as she said this. She knew her granddaughter was just finding a way to argue, since Bets had cut off their conversation about the doctor. This was better. Callie liked to tell people that the day her grandmother wasn’t outraged, they’d start planning the funeral. It made folks laugh, especially young people, who couldn’t imagine that Anna, as old as she was, hadn’t already planned her interment twice over.
    They stood on the porch, hashing out old complaints until the dry November wind drove them inside. Just as Anna moved to pick up the basket and head to the orchard for a second time, she heard the crunch of a car coming down the gravel drive out front.
    “He’s early,” Callie said, rising and moving with her awkward gait quickly through the house to the front door. The dog, who was too old to hear the car, trotted after Callie as she thumped past him.
    Bets held the door open for Anna and then glanced at the ormolu clock on the piano in the corner of the front room. “I don’t see how he made such good time from the airport. Oakland traffic is never easy to get through.”
    There was no porch off the front door. Three concrete stairs stepped down to the gravel driveway, a carved semicircle in the front yard. Anna remained standing on the top step, shading her eyes against the sun as a dark blue sedan made its way down the drive.
    “Why doesn’t he hurry up already?” Callie asked.
    “Probably didn’t get the rental insurance,” Bets said. “They’ll get you for the tiniest ding.”
    Anna squinted and saw that there was a woman behind the wheel. Bobo surprised them all by rising up on his hind legs and pawing at the sky before turning a flip. It was a trick he hadn’t done in years. Anna was just realizing it was not who they expected when the car stopped and Erin, her great-great-granddaughter, stepped out of the car.

CHAPTER TWO
    Erin
    E rin left Kidron two years earlier, after graduating from college, and hadn’t been home since. She talked too fast for Anna to catch most of what was said, but it was clear that her great-great-granddaughter was in trouble. Erin’s voice was thin, her skin sallow, and her gestures moved in opposition to her words. Anna heard her say, “I just needed a break, the stress—” and watched her hands make a circle, as if to indicate that there was some larger problem, an issue so big it couldn’t be spoken about. Callie settled next to