Irene Newman
1538 Oxford Road
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Radishes
Andra fanned herself with a folded program, trying to maintain an expression of
appreciation for the music of the seventh grade brass ensemble. The middle school, as
caught off-guard by the sudden sunshine and warmth that morning as the rest of the East
Coast, had been unable to switch off the heat in the auditorium before the school band’s
annual Thanksgiving concert. She glanced down the row at the rest of her family. Her
mother was asleep, her chin buried in her coat. Andra’s niece, Morgan, a five-year-old
with bright eyes and a brighter wardrobe, sat cross-legged, drawing a row of flowers in
red crayon along the border of her program. Morgan’s mother, and Andra’s sister, Leslie,
smiled and whispered to her husband as their eldest daughter blared through her trumpet
solo.
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In the past, Andra would have found an excuse to skip the concert or show up
late, arriving just in time for her niece’s moment in the spotlight and avoiding the threehour ordeal that was sure to trigger a migraine. Now that they’d moved her mother into
an assisted living facility and sold her car, Andra and Leslie were responsible for driving
her to events, appointments, and family dinners. Leslie had insisted that Andra bring her
mother to the middle school forty-five minutes before the concert started, and so Andra
was stuck attending the entire concert. She loved her nieces dearly, the girls were the
closest thing to children that she had. They made her laugh and she enjoyed having them
sleep-over at her house, eating popcorn and brownies for dinner and watching animated
movies. Andra knew the big moments were the ones that counted, that just showing up
and sitting in the auditorium meant she was fulfilling her role as an aunt. But that didn’t
make the concert more bearable.
“Mom,” Andra nudged her mother. “It’s Emma. She’s playing now.”
Her mother opened her eyes, stared at Andra, and fell promptly back asleep.
Morgan giggled and Leslie hushed her. Emma finished her solo and the ensemble joined
in for the ending of the song. Andra smoothed her program out in her lap and realized
with relief that the band only had one more song left. This year, the concert had been
dedicated to a family that died in a car accident a few weeks prior, hit by a truck that tried
to turn left on a red light. The family had two children, a daughter who had been in
Morgan’s kindergarten class, and a son two years older than Emma. Leslie had
whispered to Andra over the phone that Emma and Morgan seemed relatively unaffected
by the event. Emma hadn’t known the boy and Morgan was so young that in a few years
Newman, Radishes…3
she probably wouldn’t remember her classmate. Octobers would remain unblemished for
her, full of autumnal appreciation through fall finger painting activities and Halloween
crafts. Emma marked time now by school dances and other functions, but Morgan was
still at the age where she was acutely aware of each season, where leaves turning red and
gold seemed like a work of magic.
Morgan rode with Andra and her mother back to Leslie’s house for dinner after
the concert.
“How did you like Emma’s solo?” Andra asked.
“Oh, it was just lovely. Just truly remarkable how talented those kids are,” her
mother replied. Andra made eye contact with Morgan in the rearview mirror and smiled.
“I thought it was beautiful,” Morgan said, stretching the word “beautiful” out into
six syllables.
“You did?” Andra asked.
“Yes,” Morgan said. “The trumpets were so shiny and the red lights were all on
Emma and it was so loud, just like Emma.”
Emma could be rather loud, and as they pulled into the driveway, they could hear
her complaining to Leslie about how everyone else in the entire seventh grade was going
to get ice cream and it was totally unfair that she had to come home and eat with her
family when they lived together so she saw them all the time and that it was Friday and
probably the warmest day from now until April so this was her last chance to eat ice
cream for basically forever.
Newman, Radishes…4
“Lucky for you, we have ice cream in the freezer,” Leslie said, as they all walked
in the house.
“Mom,” Emma said with disgust, “that is so not the point.” She stomped up to
her room, hitting her trumpet case on each stair.
“Mom? Can I please have a piece of my Halloween candy? Please? Since I sat
through the whole concert and didn’t even fall asleep or make a loud noise?” Morgan
asked.
“Not until after dinner,” Leslie replied before yelling at Emma for slamming her
bedroom door.
Morgan had been a ballerina-firefighter-who-is-also-a-mom for Halloween,
kindergarten still being an age where Halloween costumes can reflect career goals.
Leslie and Emma had fought for weeks over Emma’s costume. Emma’s friend Crystal
had planned a group costume, a band of angels fallen from grace, their halos askew, their
wings bent and clipped, their white dresses in shreds. Leslie had said no, the implications
were inappropriate, Emma could pick a different costume or she could stay home. Emma
argued that Leslie was the worst mom in the world, that she was being stifled creatively,
that she was going to lose all her friends, that Leslie was ruining her life. Morgan had
quietly donned a pink tutu and a red plastic hat on Halloween, carrying a doll and a
diaper bag as they walked from house to house trick-or-treating.
“Morgan, you need to make sure you wash your hands before dinner,” Leslie said
as she walked into the kitchen. “There’s dirt caked under your nails, they’re disgusting.”
“Mom,” said Morgan, “that’s how everyone can tell I’m a farmer.”
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“Is that what you want to be when you grow up now? What happened to the
ballerina/firefighter/mom combo?” Andra asked.
“Oh, that’s still what I’m going to be when I grow up,” said Morgan. “I’m a
farmer now. Then I’ll grow up and be someone else but I’ll probably still have a
garden.”
“Where is your farm?” Andra asked.
“At school,” said Morgan. “We have a farm and Miss. Michie put us in partners
on the first day of school and you and your partner are in charge of a certain kind of plant
and you have to do all the weeding and the watering and the harvest. I have the radishes
and today I pulled up thirty-seven weeds.”
“Wow, how many weeds did your partner pull up?” asked Andra.
“Oh, she didn’t pull up any weeds today,” said Morgan.
“Well, that’s not very fair,” Andra said, although it sounded remarkably similar to
her own professional work experience.
“No, it’s not,” said Morgan. “That’s why I’m being the best farmer I can be, so
that we’ll still have radishes.”
“Why don’t you just tell Miss. Michie that your partner isn’t doing any work?”
Andra asked. Morgan tilted her head and looked up at her aunt.
“Charlotte would pull up weeds if she could,” said Morgan. “She just isn’t
coming to school right now. Or any other days.”
“Oh,” said Andra, suddenly remembering the list of names in the memorial
message printed on the program. “Charlotte is your friend who. That. The one that.”
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Andra didn’t know what words Leslie or Miss. Miche had used to talk to Morgan about
Charlotte. She hadn’t even known that Morgan had even really known Charlotte. Leslie
had said they hadn’t been friends, just classmates.
“She is the one who died,” said Morgan. “So she is gone but not like she moved,
gone like when the leaves turn into dirt on the plant life cycle. She can’t come back.”
“I’m sorry,” said Andra, and she realized she really was sorry. Death is hard for
her mother, who watched each week as ambulances pulled up to the assisted living
facility to take away another neighbor. Morgan is five, she still believes in a
Thanksgiving story that resembles the plot of the movie Pocahontas, death seemed
impossible to fathom at that stage.
“It’s okay,” said Morgan. “Red is Charlotte’s favorite color and October had lots
of red things in it, like red leaves, kinda cool, right?”
Andra nodded.
“I’m going to wash my hands now,” said Morgan, and she walked off to the
bathroom.
Morgan is five and she lost a classmate in the month of October, and she will
never experience an October the same way again, Andra realized. Autumn did not
remain unblemished for her. The leaves fall from the trees because they are dead,
because fall is the time when everything grows dark and dies. Probably next year, or
maybe in third grade, Thanksgiving will be ruined for Morgan too. Emma will spend the
meal yelling about how the colonists perpetuated a genocide against the indigenous
people and, from her, Morgan will learn that Pocahontas died of disease and she never
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stood on a cliff and jumped into a waterfall while singing about the colors of wind.
Morgan will likely trick-or-treat at a house where someone will tell her she can never be
a ballerina and a firefighter and a mom all at once.
And yet, in all of this, Andra realized that Morgan saw that the leaves weren’t
attached to the trees anymore and she still found them beautiful. She even thought
Emma’s trumpet solo was beautiful. Morgan had to weed the garden by herself and she
was still full of anticipation for a radish harvest, vegetables bright red and crisp under her
teeth and tart against her tongue. October was changed for Morgan, not to a better
month, but a different kind of living, a time to notice each red moment as it passed.