Project Reunion by Ginger Booth Read Free Book Online

efficiently. Until we manage that, yeah, it’s one hell of a lot of work just to keep us fed.”
I frowned at him.
He laughed. “OK. No more politics.”
“I don’t like people calling you a benign dictator.”
He shrugged. “They’ll call me a lot worse than that, if I try to fix this instead of letting people work it out for themselves. Just imagine if I tried to reform land use top-down. Get rid of all the little scraps, and put together effective farms.”
I sat up in alarm. “You mean, take my farm away?”
“Darlin’, you don’t have a farm. You barely have a subsistence lot.” I bristled. “Dee, my step-dad has a subsistence farm. It’s back-breaking work, with no end in sight. You never get ahead, never get it done. Even with me as free labor, we didn’t earn half as much as Momma. And he’s got ten, twenty times the land you do. I’m not criticizing you at all. I’m amazed at what you get out of that suburban scrap of land. But darlin’, it doesn’t have to be that way. You see these trees? The grass? That sunlight? The rain? They can do most of the work, Dee, if you leverage them right. This is a good farm.”
“This is a dozen good farms.”
Emmett shook his head. “One family runs this operation, and they know how. They give a lot of people jobs, sure. But it’s one farm. But. I’m not going to take your farm away. I’m not about to chop up this successful orchard and give the pieces to amateurs, either. So you break your heart and back feeding us all, on less than an acre, while Pine Ridge Orchard’s got apples to burn.”
“We don’t have enough margin to relieve New York, do we?” I asked sadly.
He considered that. “Shoreline Connecticut was a bedroom area. We don’t have any margin at all. That’s not true of the Northeast as a whole. There are plenty of real farms. Just not here.” He suddenly chuckled. “Is that what’s bothering you? You’re already hacked off that you’re breaking your back, while these Amen1 yahoos get a free ride? And then you picture feeding a bunch of city idiots, too?”
I pursed my lips to stifle a grin.
“Well, damn, Dee. That’s so unfair.”
I gave up and giggled into my knees.
“Oh, I know. They’re probably good at asphalt, those city types. We could put them to hard labor. They could jack-hammer up your street and driveways. That could give you, oh, another half-acre. You could plant a couple apple trees. Have to wait five years for the first harvest, though.”
“Stop!” I said, laughing.
He grabbed me into a hug and rolled us down into the grass. I finally relaxed into him, and just enjoyed the comfort of his body, insects singing, the people’s voices far away. Increasingly far away, in fact – it sounded like this party was drawing to a close. Only the real farm workers were left gleaning in earnest. The volunteers were worn out.
“Congratulations on your gleaning, Emmett. It was a good day.”
“Yeah, it was. Dee... I’m not coming back to Totoket tonight. I’ll be gone a few days.”
“Oh?”
“I need to do my research for this New York proposal.”
“Oh.” I assumed he meant to visit the border garrisons.
He kissed me slowly and tenderly, then pulled us both back to our feet, to walk down the cidery hill to the mad-house of laughing children by the little red shack. It was a good day.
He came back from his research sick as a dog, and closeted himself in his house. When the vomiting and fever subsided and he could think straight again, he had a lot of proposal left to write and precious little time left to do it in.

Chapter 5
Interesting fact: The Greater New York City borders were closed two weeks ahead of schedule on an emergency basis, due to the Ebola outbreak. The New York–New England border closed at the same time, a month early. Their share of the U.S. strategic reserves – food, fuel, and ammunition, among other things – was not delivered before the borders closed early.
“Darlin’, remember you’re not