Sheryl’s fingers ached after holding the rope so tight while Javier drove stakes into the ground so they could straighten this row of trees. The winds coming off the water could be murder, and these four-year-old trees needed some support to help them grow straight and tall. That was, if Mother Nature didn’t send a hurricane to wipe them all out.
“Almost got it,” he said, taking the rope from her and pulling it even further. How he did that, she wasn’t sure. She thought she was strong—and she knew she was. It took muscles to lug around bags of gravel and bark, bend and squat and dig and prune.
She loved every minute of it—except when her fingers hurt like this. Her mother had arthritis, and Sheryl suspected she probably did too. With how much she used her hands during the day, it wouldn’
