#158 The Farmer’s Wife

by Zachary Pingatore

There was no way these seeds would grow. Alma had found despair at the bottom of the steep steps life had pushed her towards. Spring had come early this year, but still the fields she had plowed herself appeared fallow.

“I’ve done it wrong,” the words falling like small stones from her lips. Desperation began to tint her thoughts.

“If he hadn’t died, if only the man who had kept me for the last thirty years hadn’t keeled over at last season’s harvest.” She knew then the expanse of barren earth before her would be full of sapling wheat.

The widow broke at this point. Losing him and failing to keep his fields fruitful was the last she could bear in the lifetime of misery and heartache Alma thought had made her a victim. Forgetting everything she was; meek, mild, puritanical, she fell to the field and cursed the god that made her. She cursed him for leaving her alone with no relations or friends and not enough grain to survive the coming months.

Her tears of rage quit immediately as a realization which had evaded her throughout her life slammed into her consciousness. This is not what I was meant to be, she thought. I was not meant to be a farmer’s wife. I can be something else now.

She fell onto her back with the enormity of the thought, fledgling hope bristling in her heart. When he met the earth, her hand found a single sprout of wheat.