October 26, 2015 - 11:46
pg. 116
"Dame!" Momoko said. "Shoo! Shoo!" She waved her hands at the large bumblebee and plucked the naked, petal-less males from Lloyd's slow fingers. Holding the first one by the stem like a brush, she swabbed the pollen-covered anthers onto each of the glistening lobes of the female's stigma. Then while Lloyd waved his hands over her head, keeping the bee at bay, she repeated the process with the second.
"It is better using two boy flowers for one girl," she said. "Sometimes three."
pg. 254
But the next minute he felt the rubber-tiped aluminum legs sink into the soil, pitching him forward off the garden path and into the squashes. He lay there. The smell of the soil tickled his nose and felt cool against his forehead. It was his soil, built up carefully with generous rotations of nitrogen-fixing crops, year after year. Recycling nutrients. Never taking more out than you gave back. So different from the way they farmed potatoes now. The soil still had life, Lloyd thought, and with his face down it in, he took a handful in his fist and squeezed it tight and waited for his daughter to find him.
pg. 287
"You know what means that one?" she asked, pointing to the large tattoo.
The young man twisted around and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "It's the Japanese word for happiness."
"Nope," she said, shaking her head. "It is not mean happiness. It mean stupid."
"No way!" the kid protested, twisting and peeking over his shoulder, as though the tattoo might have changes shape when he wasn't looking.
"So sorry," she said and started to walk away, but then she stopped. "Hey," she called back to him. "You a happy guy?"
"Yeah," the kid said, looking a lot less happy than he had before.
"But stupid, too. Stupid to put such big happiness in back of you."