Adeline's Pumpkin Patch

The knife sinks into crumbly crust and golden orange filling. The slice of pie slides onto the plate, sitting tall and proud as though it knows how delicious it will be. She sinks a fork into the dessert as slowly as she can, the hint of mischief in her smile suggesting she knows exactly what she’s doing to the people sitting on their couches and drooling over their television screens. Despite the grainy and pixelated quality of my old telly, the dusty smell of my living room, and the fact that the woman on screen is the daughter I haven’t talked to in ten years, my mouth is watering. I grumble with my stomach as I change the channel.

Bill chuckles from his armchair in the corner, clutching his pipe between his teeth. “She’s made quite a name for herself, our little Adeline.”

I glare at the television as it searches for a signal. Our little Adeline. The problem is, she isn’t so little anymore. She fled from her Pa and I as soon as she got the chance, and somehow turned into something famous, all because of that darn pumpkin patch, which now sits in the corner of our farm, sad and brown and ugly looking. I often find my mind wandering back to the days when my Adeline would put her heart and soul into caring for that garden, keeping it a luscious green, and waiting for me to be proud of her.

Adeline was a fiery young soul. Since she was six years old, she’d been working her tail off to grow herself a pumpkin so I could turn it into pie. But she was young and had no clue how to make anything grow, and Bill and I were too busy running the farm to teach her. Still she persisted, and still the patch was nothing but a mess of dirt and weeds.

Until one day at the dinner table, sometime in the early months of summer, Adeline proudly proclaimed, “I’ve got a blossom growin’ in my pumpkin patch.”

Neither Bill nor I looked up from our supper. “It’s not nice to lie, Adeline,” I said.

“I’m not lyin’,” she huffed. “If you don’t believe me, come and see for yourselves.”

But there were dishes to do, breads to bake, and a kitchen to clean, so if there was a blossom in that patch, I never saw it.

Adeline continued to tend to her beloved pumpkin patch, even as the summer days stretched longer and hotter than ever before. What she did to those weeds that took up so much of her time was beyond me. Even if I thought she was capable of growing a pumpkin, I was positive she could never do so in such a heatwave.

The scorching center of the summer season brought about another dinner during which Adeline gave an updated announcement.

“I’ve got a baby pumpkin growin’ in my pumpkin patch.”

“It’s not nice to lie, Adeline,” I said.

She slammed her fork onto the table. “But I do!”

My eyes met hers, fierce and sharp. “That is no way to talk at the dinner table!”

She shrank in her chair. “I know Ma, I know. But I’ve really got a pumpkin growin’!”

I shook my head and the conversation was over.

Our suppers were silent for the final month of summer, until a week before school started when Addie spoke up again.

“I’ve got a pumpkin in my pumpkin patch,” she said, quiet but confident.

“Adeline, it’s not nice to-”

“I’ve. Got. A. Pumpkin. In. My. Pumpkin patch.” Her voice was slow and stubborn, and it was either my want to end the pumpkin patch ridiculousness or my slight curiosity that left me staring in awe and confusion at the very large and very real pumpkin sitting in a tangle of green.

Adeline had a big smile on her face. “I wanna make a pie out of it,” she declared, trying to contain her childish excitement. “I wanna turn it into a big ol’ pumpkin pie.”

Although it was surprising to learn that my six year old daughter really did grow herself a pumpkin, there were meals to make and bedrooms to clean and errands to run, so I never did make Adeline that pumpkin pie. She took the matter into her own hands.

I came home from the market the next morning and was greeted by a cloud of flour so thick I had to squint to make out the rest of the mess that resulted from Addie’s pie. She stood in a pigsty of a kitchen, her cheeks sticky with pumpkin, flour caked in her hair, and (by some miracle) a pumpkin pie sitting innocently in her arms.

“Ma, please!” Adeline said with a mouth full of pie as I wiped down the counters with a wet rag. “You’ve gotta try some!”

“Adeline, why were you in the kitchen without my permission? You could’ve burned the place down! From now on, you stay away from the oven unless I tell you otherwise, you hear?”

“But Ma, you’ve gotta try some,” she repeated. “It’s real good!”

“Well you’d best enjoy it while it lasts, because you won’t be makin’ anythin’ else in the kitchen anytime soon,” I grumbled as I scraped at dried pumpkin cemented to the countertop. “I’m very disappointed in you Adeline.”

The final week before school started was a quiet one. Adeline was furious with me, a furiosity I dismissed as childish behavior that would pass eventually. But it didn’t. As Addie grew, so did her anger. She still tended to that darn pumpkin patch, but never again did I catch her in the kitchen trying to bake up a pie. She was quiet, like children are supposed to be. Yet something about her constant silence bothered me- it just wasn’t like her.

By the time Adeline was sixteen years old, we barely spoke. A part of me started to wonder what happened to all her sass and enthusiasm.

Until one day, I came home and my daughter was gone. Bill and I searched for miles, but there was no sign of her. She simply fled, taking most of her belongings with her and leaving almost no trace of Adeline anywhere in the house. The one thing she left was a pumpkin- a large, round, bright orange pumpkin, sitting proudly on the front steps. Attached to the stem was a note from my Adeline:

Ma,

This is a pumpkin from my pumpkin patch. I want you to make a pie out of it.

And so I did. I put my heart and soul into making that pumpkin pie, just as I should’ve put my heart and soul into raising that extraordinary child. I’ll never forget my first bite of buttery crust and warm pumpkin filling- this pie was, put plainly, the most exquisite thing I ever tasted. To my surprise, tears began strolling down my cheeks as I longed for my Adeline to come back to me. I ate that whole darn pie in one sitting, wondering with each bite and each tear if Addie’s first pie- the one she made way back when she was barely more than a baby, a baby who wanted nothing more than my love and support- tasted just as magical as this one.

A few years later, when my Adeline was about twenty years old, Bill and I saw her on the television for the first time. She had gotten herself her very own cooking show- From the Patch. She baked not only pumpkins, but all sorts of pies and cakes and pastries with ingredients you can grow in your backyard.

It hurt to see my Adeline’s pixelated face every time I watched her channel, because even though the screen was sad and broken, Addie never was. I raised that child for sixteen years, and never once did I get to see her smile as brightly as she does when she’s cooking.

I’ve made dozens of pies since the one with Addie’s pumpkin, trying my hardest to recreate the taste. Never again will I have the pleasure of savoring the magic she somehow put into that pumpkin patch, the patch that now decays in the corner of the farm as a constant reminder of the daughter I took for granted.