Sandy soils and infertile lands

There was something to be said about the way Mary Carter held a man captive. Her softness was often mistaken for helplessness and her youth for innocence, but Mary was far from a damsel in distress. She was, in fact, passionate, complete, and dazzling. To John Bartlett, she was sunshine.

War had slithered into the quiet recesses of the Bartlett farm in the early 1950s and John grew accustomed to hearing of the evils of communism from his father, who would walk him and his three older brothers among the fruit trees every evening. But no matter how intensely John's father spoke about communism and how painstakingly he justified his country's need to stop it from taking over the world, John could never understand how a war would bring about the peace his father idealized.

Then in 1967, 15-year-old John Bartlett saw wars' companions, fear and pain, begin their torturous assault on his parents as one brother was conscripted as an 18-year-old, while the oldest brother could not let him face this fight alone. John thought to join them on foreign soil in 1970 but, to the relief of his mother, Mary Carter held him captive on their own.

The farm turned into a beehive of activity from May to October every year as apricots, sweet cherries, raspberries, and strawberries came into season June and July while the nectarines, peaches, and plums were ripe for the picking from July through to September, and followed naturally by apples and pears from August through to October. John first met Mary in May 1969.

She arrived on the farm wearing bell-bottom jeans decorated with marigold flower patches that hugged her hips, an emerald green halter top, and a floppy orange wide-brimmed hat that kept her long blonde hair from flying around in the wind. Mary was the same age as John but her small frame suggested she was younger. However, the teenage Bartlett brothers did not notice her small stature when she first appeared on the farm. The only thing John and Thomas did notice was that she showed up with her tight midriff exposed and breasts moving about unrestrained by a bra.

Mary arrived with two men of similar age and John thought one was her boyfriend although she seemed to divide her spare time and attention equally among both. As June came around, John and Thomas were none the wiser as neither man would say anything untoward about Mary. They both called her "a little sister" yet one spoke with a French accent and the other was Spanish.

Then something remarkable happened on July 20 in 1969. Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong took one small step that changed the trajectory of John's life. Neil took the step... John took a leap and with quiet faith, kissed Mary Carter for the first time. Nine nights later, John and Mary sat in the barn loft with the doors wide open, and under the intensity of the full moon, they were exposed to the potency of her light and charged with a divine intention to love each other unconditionally.

John and Mary left the farm early in August on a venture that his parents did not publicly approve but privately accepted. They travelled to another farm and for three days, celebrated music and life at Woodstock. John and Mary then travelled some more and freely explored their world, one day coming across a field of marigold flowers growing wild in sandy soils.

"How do they grow?" John asked, believing the land they were upon was infertile.

"They grow in full sunshine," Mary smiled as they laid among the flowers. "Yellow, warm fingers of sunlight touch the buds, and they bloom under the radiance of the suns' morning caress."

John kissed her more intensely that day than he ever had before, and Mary felt loved. "You are my sunshine," John smiled back, playing with her yellow hair as she ran long slender fingers over his forearm.

"Then you shall call me Sunshine Bartlett from this day forth," she whispered with a hint of a smile, and that is just what John did.

They returned to his parent's farm in September 1969 completely in love and were married and pregnant a short four months later. To his parent's relief, John and his brother Thomas neither volunteered to fight nor were conscripted to do so. However, every day for almost five years since Robert and James Bartlett went to war, the family waited for news on them.

Conscripted James returned in 1972 looking much older than 23. Robert never made it home and grief broke their mother's heart. James returned to the family farm to find his younger brothers married with children. Thomas had been married for a year and had a newborn, while John had been married for three years and had three sons, one after the other.

James always thought Sunshine was a strange name to give to a child, but as he tried adapting to farm life, he could see why she was called such. He often found it hard to sleep at night as most times when he closed his eyes, he would see friends get torn apart by peasant’s rifles that had a lower rate of fire than his own gun. In those memories, the hits on his friends' bodies from the bullets fired always moved in slow motion. Or he'd just start to fall asleep but be startled back to consciousness by sounds that reminded him of those sharp bamboo sticks that would whistle through the air from booby traps laid by the Viet-Cong. It was nights like these when he could not sleep that Sunshine would sit and talk with him until he felt the heart slow back down and he stopped sweating himself into a panic. It was as though she knew he was in trouble.

But as hard as Sunshine tried to save him, James began to disappear. He'd avoid dinners with the family and walking the fields with his brothers and father every evening. He couldn't pinpoint when, but he began to feel he was in hostile territory... was it the way his father looked at him or when John and Thomas spoke huddled in a corner? Something did not sit right with him and James knew they were plotting against him. He already felt like he did not belong there but now it seemed his father and brothers felt the same way too.

Sunshine tried to reassure him... sometimes she could calm the war within him. But then one day, that war tore her apart too. April 1973 the farm was getting busy with the upcoming picking season. John's and Sunshine's boys were growing - Michael was three, David was two and Christopher was to turn one in May. The weather was warming up and Sunshine found James pacing outside of the barn one balmy night.

"Hi James," Sunshine said with a smile as she approached him.

He spun to look at her and in that very moment, fear lodged its grip in Sunshine's throat. The man before her looked like James and yet did not. Dark brown hair clung to his sweaty forehead and his eyes darted manically to and fro, as though he was expecting someone or something to attack him at any moment.

Sunshine stepped backwards, inching her way towards the house but James saw something he needed. James wanted her light... the one he could see beating in her chest. Peace lived there. So, he ran towards her and jumped. It was too easy. She didn't run. She didn't scream. She just laid there, and James found a way to strike. Once done, he got up and left her lying on the dewy grass. Then in the cold dawn of the next morning, he left the farm. He simply disappeared.

One year after James returned from war, and two months after he had disappeared from the farm, John's mother had died from a broken heart. Then in January 1974, nine months after James had disappeared, a fourth Bartlett son was added to Sunshine's and John's fold. His name was William.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my fourth piece of Vocal's Summer Fiction Series! If you enjoyed it, please send me a like by clicking the heart below or by sending a tip. I appreciate your support.

The story starts with "Sunshine and the moon's shadow: the old barn" and will continue with "The bull she fed: breaking the spirit of the beast".