Jack opened the door before Mara could bring her knuckles down a second time. Her hand hung midair. Her eyes slowly opened.
“Hi,” Jack said.
“You startled me,” Mara replied.
“I thought I heard you pull up. Please, come on in,” Jack said as he moved aside.
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Mara stepped into the foyer.
She surveyed the room. The Armstrong house was old, especially for this era, but if you looked closely enough you could see newer layers from successive repairs and additions. It was brighter and more open than she expected at this time of day. Bay windows brought in bright light that created patterns across the floors and the walls scuffed with several generations of wear. This was so unlike the sterile, self-healing walls of her childhood, where marks and stains would repair themselves within minutes. These walls had memory. On the doorframe of the coat closet, she saw faded pencil marks that ran vertically from the floor. It took a second to decode, but she realized these pencil scratchings marked the passage of time and the growth of several generations of kids. Jack was a child here, she thought.
“Has Anna showed you around before?” Jack asked.
“Yes, but she didn’t give me much detail. You’ve lived here your entire life, haven’t you?” Mara said.
“For the most part. I’ve spent a good amount of time overseas, but yeah, this is home.” Jack glanced around the room. “The living room over here was part of the original home built about 120 years ago. I knocked down a bunch of walls to open the place up and I’m pretty sure I’ve ticked off my ancestors in the process. The morning room over there with the piano? I built that in the last couple of years. It’s one of my favorite rooms.”
Mara walked past the living room into the open morning room. Large wall-to-wall windows framed the green rolling hills and pastures and groves of trees just beyond the backyard. It was like a study in contrast and light. Sunset caught the corner of the room. They had no idea how beautiful this time was.
She made her way to the old white upright piano on the far wall. It too was covered in scuff marks and history. She stood over the piano and absently tinkered with several chords, an old song from her childhood that was still over a hundred years from being written. She paused and let her fingers rest on the keys as the final chord echoed through the room and down the hallway. It had been so long since she had heard that sound.
“You play piano too?” Jack shook his head. “What can’t you do?”
“I don’t really play. I haven’t played . . . for years. Muscle memory I guess.” Mara smiled.
“Well, your memory plays beautifully.”
Mara looked to the row of picture frames above the piano. They looked like they had been lined up chronologically, with the oldest photos to the left. A smiling young couple looked back in black and white, and Mara saw elements of Jack in both faces. The large eyes and long eyelashes from the woman. The sharp jawline and long neck from the man.
“Your parents?”
“Grandparents,” Jack said.
“Handsome couple.”
“This one here is of my parents,” Jack said as he pointed to a faded color image of another young couple with a toddler in the mother’s arms. “And that little guy was my big brother, Sam. The one with the big ears, like a car with its doors open.”
“Anna’s father?”
“Yeah. Anna’s father. It’s a shame, but I don’t have any pictures of Anna’s mother here. I really should. She was something. Beautiful, smart. A whole lot like Anna.” Jack seemed lost for a moment, as if he were looking at these photos for the first time in a very long time. “I miss them both.”
“I see a lot of Anna in you too. Your enthusiasm. Your desire to make a difference.” Mara smiled warmly. “She really loves you, you know. She’s lucky to have you.”
“Yeah. I wasn’t so sure at first,” Jack chuckled. “I wasn’t ready for this. To be a legal guardian. I guess that’s what they call it. I think we both were a little lost after my brother died, but Anna has really helped me piece things back together. And now I can’t imagine her not being in my life.”
“That makes two of us.” Mara gently touched Jack’s arm.
“Uh, well. We better not let dinner cool off too much.” Jack motioned toward the hallway.
They made their way back to the kitchen, where the dining table was set for two. Matching plates, a centerpiece of yellow and blue wildflowers, and several large white serving trays with food lined the table. Uncle Jack waited for Mara to sit down first.
“Okay, I guess I should give you a quick breakdown. Dinner tonight was a collaborative effort. I made the whitefish. Well, let me expand on that. I caught, cleaned, and grilled the whitefish. Ricardo and his wife, Itzel, contributed the quinoa salad. It’s pretty amazing, but fair warning, it has a kick.” Jack smiled.
“A kick?”
“You know—spicy.” Jack fanned his mouth. “Gladness made the chapati bread. It’s a childhood favorite of hers from Tanzania, and it too is pretty amazing. Faye made the desert. A peach pie. Once again, one of her family recipes. Oh, and the wine is also from Faye. Organic and French, so . . .”
Mara took one of the whole fish from the serving tray and laid it on her plate, followed by a scoop of the salad and one of the round flatbreads still steaming under a covered basket. She tore off a chunk of the bread first, and it released more steam with a rich smell of butter and salt. The texture was flaky, and the flavor was buttery and smooth with a hint of something else, maybe nuts. She closed her eyes and let the flavor rest on the middle of her tongue. She chewed slowly in silence. When she opened her eyes, Jack was staring at her again.
“Good?” he asked.
“Very.”
She used her fork to create a combination of flavors next, spearing a piece of tangerine, avocado, and kale from the salad. She placed the whole bite in her mouth and let the food rest there without chewing. Sweet, tart, buttery, and a sense of heat. Real heat, but not unpleasant. She sampled the fish next. Another first. Real fish, not synthetic. Delicate and slightly sweet with a complement of garlic and spice. She went from dish to wine to new dish, sampling in silence and thinking to herself: Of all the things that the people of her time had lost, this one was the least appreciated. Food. Simple whole food grown in soil or caught in the wild and prepared by hand.
“You’re a quiet eater, if you don’t mind me saying,” Jack said.
“Where I come from, we don’t talk during dinner. We rarely even eat together, and if we do, it’s only out of convenience,” Mara said. The wine made her cheeks flush.
“Really? That sounds awful. Food is a social thing here. If you think about it, it’s the very reason for this farm’s existence,” Jack said. “I’m curious, since you mentioned it. Where do you come from?”
Mara paused. “Come from?”
“Yeah. I know so little about you other than you’re brilliant and ride a motorcycle and really, really like food.” Uncle Jack smiled. “I was hoping to get to know a little more about you.”
Mara froze; her arms hung limply by her side. She didn’t respond for five to ten seconds. An eternity. She just stared straight forward trying desperately to recalculate the course of this conversation. She had practiced different types of questions and responses with SID earlier in the day and prepared for multiple scenarios. She had memorized her backstory. But for some reason all that preparation went out the window the second she fully engaged with Jack.
She stood from the table without saying anything and turned toward the stairs.
“Are you looking for the restroom?” Jack called out.
“No. I forgot something. Anna. I’ll be back.” Mara headed up the stairs, leaving Jack alone at the table looking confused.
Mara raced up the steps, clearing two at a time, and knocked on Anna’s door. The door swung open. Inside the room, Lula and Fiona were sitting on the floor listening to music from someone’s phone. Anna leaned against the door.
“What are you doing here?” Anna whispered. The music helped drown out the conversation.
“Your uncle is asking personal questions,” Mara said under her breath.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Not this. I froze?” Mara looked desperate.
“Are you serious?” Anna shrugged in exasperation.
“Very.” Mara returned the same look of exasperation.
“Do what you used to do, I guess. I mean, what did you do when you went on a date before?” Anna asked.
“We don’t have dates—at least not like this. There were no personal questions. No inquisition. We already knew everything about each other from our social streams. Our entire history. There’s no mystery. And meetings were arranged by algorithm. I told you that.”
“I didn’t think you were serious.”
“Help me find an exit. Tell your uncle I had to leave.”
Anna shut the door behind her and joined Mara in the hallway.
“All right, all right. Just calm down,” Anna said as she grabbed Mara by the arms and looked her square in the eye. “You’re not leaving.”
“Then help me. Come downstairs and join us.”
“No. But I have an idea. When he asks you a question, just tell him part of the truth—the part you’re comfortable saying,” Anna said.
“That’s your idea?”
“You’re not very good at this are you?”
“You mean deception? No, I am not. It might surprise you to know, but there is little need for deceit in the future.”
“All right. Make the conversation about him then. Guys love talking about themselves. You ask the questions. You take the offensive,” Anna said firmly.
“I take the offensive?”
Anna nodded in affirmation.
“Okay. Okay. That might work.” Mara took in a deep breath. “But stand by your iCom. I may need an emergency intervention.”
Anna smiled. It seemed to help. Mara took in another deep breath and turned to head back downstairs.
“My uncle flusters you a little, doesn’t he?” Anna said lightly.
“Yes, he does,” Mara answered without looking back.
Mara reentered the kitchen and sat down quietly at the table. She took another bite of bread followed by a longer drink of wine. She set the glass down and smiled.
“Everything okay?” Jack asked, his expression worried.
“Yes. Yes. I had forgotten to tell Anna about a deadline for the Albright Fellowship, but we’re good.” Mara took another drink of wine.
One deception down.
“Whew. I thought it was me for a second,” Jack said, laughing nervously.
“So, you asked me where I was from.”
“Yeah, I was just curious—”
“Boston.”
“Boston? Oh, just like Anna. What a coincidence.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you sure don’t sound like you’re from Boston. To be honest, I couldn’t tell where you’re from. England, maybe Europe. Is that where your family is from?” Jack asked again.
Take the offensive, Mara thought.
“Are you trying to determine my genetic composition and heritage?” Mara leaned in.
“Uh, yeah. That sounded pretty insensitive now that you put it that way. I’m sorry.” Jack leaned back.
“No need to be sorry. I’m 15 percent Northern European, 31 percent Southern European, 15 percent Manchurian and Mongolian, 12 percent South American, 10 percent North African, 7 percent West African, and 10 percent Southeast Asian, including traces of Denisovan and Neanderthal base strands,” Mara said, then took a bite of the fish and followed it with more wine.
“Wow. That is oddly precise,” Jack laughed. “I’d love to go to one of your family reunions.”
“That would be a trick. We’re pretty distant. My full name is Mara Banjoko Lee and I’m a research scientist. I have advanced degrees in physics and biology and a brother and a sister.” Mara sipped her wine again and looked down, slightly disappointed at her now empty glass. “But enough about me. I want to know more about you.”
“Okay. Ask anything you’d like.”
Mara poured herself another glass of wine, leaned in, and smiled. Her cheeks felt warm.
“How do you intend to save the world?” Mara asked.
“Well, that’s a pretty big question. I’m not sure where to start,” Jack said. He poured himself another glass of wine in return.
“Start at the beginning. I have all night.”
“Okay. Let me see. I never set out to save the world. I never intended to be a farmer. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted to do. Farming is hard and it doesn’t make any money and you’re at the mercy of nature and commodity prices. I went to college to study electrical engineering and planned on doing development work overseas.”
“Is that where you met Dr. Gloria?”
“Oh, no, I’ve known RG since kindergarten, and we’ve been kind of joined at the hip ever since. In fact, we were even roommates in college,” Jack said.
“So why did you return here to your family farm?”
“RG and I decided to work overseas after college. Since we had agricultural backgrounds, we were placed with farmers in Malawi. Setting up microgrids, upgrading farm equipment. Anything to help increase yield. We had all the naive confidence of youth and thought we were making a difference. But it didn’t take long to figure out that we weren’t helping. In some ways, we might have been making it worse. We were exporting ways of working that didn’t make much sense there.” Jack shrugged.
“I’m sure you did some good?”
“Maybe, but the whole system is rigged against the small farmer over there. Actually everywhere, I guess. From seed to fertilizer to the equipment they’re forced to buy. We were just helping those farmers get into debt faster. It was there in Malawi that RG and I realized that food and farming may be at the very heart of a lot of our issues today. From the environment to health to social justice. And these farmers were just victims of a crappy system like everyone else. So we came home and I asked my dad to convert the farm into a research facility to see if we could help address it,” Jack said.
“And?”
“And, after a couple of years of me preaching, he finally gave in and said yes. And that’s the start of the Armstrong and Gloria Regenerative Farms Research Center and our goal to save the world, like you said.” Jack smiled. “I wish my mom and dad had been able to stick around to see this place, and Anna. They’d be proud I think.”
“So how are you doing?”
“With?”
“Your mission. Have you fixed the broken food system?”
Uncle Jack laughed and leaned back from the table. “Yeaaaaah. Well. I wouldn’t say fixed. But we’ve made some headway. We’ve introduced open-source seed programs in developing regions. Even some here in the US, of all places, along with some lawsuits. We’ve open-sourced our designs for farm equipment. We’ve helped mentor regenerative farming programs in over a dozen locations. It’s a start.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Excuse me?” Jack looked genuinely surprised.
“It’s not enough. We have three decades at most to draw down emissions, especially from farming. Six decades to preserve topsoil,” Mara said. “Fifty-seven years to be exact. After that, there is no soil for food.”
“Well, we’re not certain how long we have—”
“I’m certain.” Mara looked straight ahead, unblinking.
“Okay. I see you are.”
“I can help,” Mara said.
“I appreciate that, but physics ain’t farming, Mara. People problems aren’t so easy to break down, and the food system is ultimately a people problem.”
“Maybe you’re just using the wrong models,” Mara said.
“Maybe we are, but there is no one simple solution and no one model. What we have instead are a whole bunch of complex problems all butting up against each other,” Jack volleyed back.
“Then let me start with one,” Mara shot back.
“One what? Problem?” Jack gave a half smile.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Water. Regions throughout the world are depleting their water tables faster than they can be replenished. How do we increase the availability of water with drought increasing year over year?” Jack asked.
He poured Mara some more wine and smiled. He was having fun.
“I’ll start working on it tonight.” Mara raised a single eyebrow and smiled back. This is what hope felt like—what purpose felt like. Like she had said before: if she was going to make the most of this new future she had, she would start here, on this farm.
“Wait.” Jack was taken aback. “You’re serious.”
“Of course I am.”
“I mean serious serious? You want to join us?”
“Yes.” Mara nodded and chuckled.
“What about your work at the Albright Fellowship?”
“Easy. I can do both,” Mara said.
Jack spent a moment assessing where the conversation had gone. Not where he expected, that was for sure. And he couldn’t decide if she was teasing or if she really meant to work with him here on the farm. But the resolute look in her eyes gave him his answer. Questions like for how long and for how much didn’t seem to matter at this moment. She was just going to be part of his life in some capacity for the foreseeable future, and that was more than he had hoped for. He raised his glass.
“Well then, welcome to the team, Mara Banjoko Lee,” Jack said.
She raised her glass in return. They sat for a moment and let the silence set in. Mara then placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on top of folded hands. She turned her head to the side and traced aspects of Jack’s face with her eyes.
“You are so unlike anyone I’ve ever met,” Mara said.
Jack looked away for a second then looked back.
“Yeah. I’ve never met anyone like you either.”
“Your face is all wrong,” Mara said, still tracing the contours of his face with her gaze.
“Excuse me?”
Mara reached across the table and ran her finger along the crooked edges of Jack’s nose, an imperfection never seen in her time. He stared down at her hand, which was warm and smooth. His eyes crossed.
“Were you born this way or was it some kind of mishap?” Mara said as she traced the other side of the bridge of his nose.
“Really?” Jack felt his heart sink. “It’s that bad?”
“Not at all. It’s quite charming.”
“Okay, I’ll take charming.” Jack smiled, a little relieved. “It was a line drive I took straight to the nose when I was playing baseball in high school. It’s what I get for not paying attention. My dad set the break after the game, and it’s been just a little crooked ever since. I don’t know. I kind of like it.”
“May I see your hands?” Mara asked as she reached out her own.
Jack paused just for a moment, not sure where this was going, then reluctantly held out his hands. Mara turned his palms over and ran her fingers along his hands. His nails were clean, but no amount of scrubbing was going to get rid of the calluses and deep-set work lines.
“These are calluses, correct?” Mara asked.
“You’re definitely not from around here,” Jack laughed.
Mara shook her head no and held on to his hands. Jack could feel the strength in her fingers.
“Somehow, all these imperfections just work,” Mara said.
“I’m glad they’re good for something,” Jack chuckled. “Say, you want to go for a walk? I have something I’ve been working on that I want to show you.”
Mara nodded and allowed Jack to take her by the hand as he led her past the kitchen, through the front door, and out into the late evening air. Temperatures had finally cooled just a bit, and fireflies blinked lazily at eye level. The two walked slowly past the front fence and into the barnyard. Most of the crew had headed home for the day, and the farm was silent except for the evening sounds, once so foreign to Mara. Jack let go of Mara’s hand and motioned for her to stay there as he walked over to the fabrication shed, opened the door, then stepped back.
“What is this?” Mara asked.
Jack signaled for her to wait one more minute; a broad grin spread across his face. He reached into his back pocket for his phone and began typing commands. He looked back at the open door shrouded in darkness. Suddenly a warm golden light appeared at eye level from somewhere back in the shadows. The light floated lazily toward the door and out twenty feet into the night air. It was a Chinese lantern decorated in red and gold; its glow lit up the side of the building and the ground just below. Another lantern appeared, then another, until the sky above their heads was filled with spheres of light gently bobbing in the light breeze. The two looked up, their faces aglow.
“You planned this?” Mara asked.
“I did, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to show you. It depended on how the evening went.” Jack reached for her hand again. This time she wove her fingers between his and squeezed back. “I was originally planning on launching these at the fair. Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”
“You’re trying to impress me, aren’t you?” Mara asked.
“Maybe. Is it working?”
Mara grabbed his other hand. She hadn’t expected this, or wanted this, but here it was just the same. She leaned into Jack, into this world where people held mysteries and imperfections, and kissed him beneath the light of the Chinese lanterns.
Back at the house, three young friends leaned against each other in Anna’s bedroom and looked out a darkened window into the barnyard at the magical lights and the embracing couple. Anna didn’t expect this—at all. But, like Mara, now that it was here, she was glad.