He said, "My mother had a garden when I was a kid. She grew tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers, and she used to send me out to pick things for dinner." He paused. "I don't know why I thought it was okay to just take from yours. I think I just didn't think about whose it was."
I said, "That's honest." He said, "I'm going to plant something in my own yard. I don't know what, but something." I said, "I can help you with that if you want. I know a fair amount about growing things."
He looked surprised. He said, "Yeah." I said, "Come over some Saturday and we'll talk about what your yard can support. Your light situation is different from mine." He said, "Okay."
He went home. I stood at my door for a moment after he left in the afternoon light, feeling something I had not expected to feel. Not triumph exactly, and not forgiveness exactly, but something that might be the beginning of both, mixed together in the particular way that complicated human situations tend to mix things. Where we are now. The Carolina Reapers came back this year.
They are perennial in our climate or close enough and the plants from last year overwintered in pots in my garage and are now in their second season, larger and more productive than ever. I have harvested a significant quantity of peppers and have given jars of homemade hot sauce to Frances, to Ted Blalock, and to several other neighbors who expressed interest. I clearly labeled every jar Carolina Reaper, handle with care, not a tomato. Gary started a container garden on his back patio last spring. He asked for my advice on tomatoes, which I gave freely.
His tomatoes are mediocre. He is overwatering them, which I have told him twice, but they are his and he is proud of them and he has not touched mine. He knocked on my door in July with a paper bag. Inside the bag was six tomatoes, his own tomatoes, red and slightly uneven, the particular beauty of a homegrown thing. He said, "First real harvest, wanted to share."
I took the tomatoes. I said, "These are good, Gary." He grinned. The peach tree had 39 peaches this year, fewer than the infamous 47, but still a real harvest, all of which I picked myself at my own convenience without finding them gone in the morning. I made two pies and a batch of preserves and gave a pie to Frances, who said it was the best thing she had eaten in years.
I think she was right. 39 peaches, all mine. After 6 years and a great deal of patience and approximately 2 million Scoville units of karma. I will take it. The trail camera is still mounted on the fence, not because I expect trouble, just because I am a biology teacher and a biology teacher always documents.