They Laughed When a Single Dad Painted 211 Peach Trees White — Then Spring Came
Chapter 2
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"Dad, you always forget which weeks are short. I'm keeping track."She was ten years old, and she kept track of things.His truck, a '94 F-150 with 287,000 miles on it, stalled twice before it started. The first time, Marcus pumped the gas three times and tried again. The second time, he sat there with his hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield at the frost melting off the hood in thin streams.Lily reached over from the passenger seat and touched his wrist. "Third time's the charm."It started on the third try. It always did.At the feed store later that morning, Marcus loaded two bags of fertilizer into the bed of his truck and tried not to think about the $4,000 in his checking account. Clare's medical bills had taken three years to clear after she died: three years of working overtime at the processing plant in Anniston; three years of Lily eating free lunch at school and never asking for new shoes; three years of watching the orchard slowly fall apart because there weren't enough hours in the day or dollars in the bank.Dale Whitmore was holding court by the register when Marcus walked back inside to pay. Dale owned 800 acres, ran 40 head of cattle, and spoke for the whole county whether anyone asked him to or not. He was a big man with a red face and a kind of confidence that came from never having been wrong about anything in his life."Heard you're painting your trees," Dale said, loud enough for the whole store to hear. "Like a damn house. Carter, you finally cracked?"The men around him laughed. Marcus paid for his fertilizer and didn't answer."I'm serious now," Dale continued, stepping closer. "You're going to spend money you don't have on paint for trees? Son, when a tree dies, it dies. That's farming. You can't pretty it up."Marcus took his receipt and folded it once, twice, and put it in his pocket. He thought about his father, who'd planted the giant heirloom peach tree by the east fence the year Marcus was born. That tree was 39 years old now, and last season its fruit had been small for the first time, its leaves yellowing early. It was showing its age, and so was everything else on this land."My daddy used to say, 'A man shouldn't be afraid to look at the thing everyone else has decided not to see,'" Marcus said quietly. "I'm looking, Dale. That's all."He walked out before anyone could respond.At the hardware store, he bought 14 buckets of white latex paint: $312 total. The clerk rang it up three times because he kept losing count, staring at Marcus like he was trying to figure out if this was a joke. Marcus loaded the buckets into his truck one by one while men in the parking lot stopped to watch. Nobody said anything; they didn't have to.