Out of Season

​The soil was still warm.

Even though frost clung to car windows and the neighbor’s roof glittered like sugar, Nora pressed her fingers into the black earth of her backyard garden and felt its breath rise against her skin—humid, rich, alive. 

Tomatoes had split their skins overnight, fat and bursting like they couldn’t wait for her. Like they knew she’d come. 

She wiped her hands on her coat and laughed. “You’re early,” she whispered to the fruit, as if the vines had ears.

She plucked one from the lowest cluster and held it close to her face. 

The skin was smooth and faintly translucent. The color—not quite red, not quite orange—reminded her of a color she used to see in her daughter’s cheeks after swimming. Nora popped it into her mouth and bit down.

It was the sweetest thing she’d tasted in months.

 

⸻

 

The radio had said the cold snap would last two more weeks.

But yesterday, the snow melted like it had somewhere better to be, and today the robins were singing like drunkards in the elm.

No one else on the street had a garden like hers. The neighbors still had their yards wrapped in tarp, their flower beds rigid with ice. But her tomatoes—her miracles—had kept growing through the chill. 

First, slowly. Then, all at once.

She thought about taking pictures, uploading them again on Facebook. She had last week, and the post went semi-viral among the gardening groups. “January harvest!” she’d captioned it. #NatureWins #GratefulGardener.

But the comments had been mixed:

“God’s gifts come when we need them most!”

“What did you use for soil? I’ve never seen this in Zone 5.”

“You shouldn’t eat those. Something’s wrong with the sun.”

“The bees are dying and you’re eating tomatoes?”

She’d stopped checking after that. The algorithm favored outrage.

 

⸻

 

By noon, she had five baskets full.

Not just tomatoes now—radishes had forced themselves up, rupturing the dirt with fat white bodies. Her lone strawberry plant had bloomed red as a wound. The vines on the trellis trembled faintly, like they were listening for something.

She bent to tie the vine, fingers brushing a leaf. It pulsed.

Just for a second.

Nora froze.

Then blinked, and looked again.

The leaf hung still in the air, motionless.

She shook her head. “I need to eat something,” she muttered, and stood too fast.

Her head swam a little. 

 

⸻

 

The knock came soon after. 

It was Jim from next door, the one with the wind chimes and the new electric car. He didn’t usually come over unless his dog had gotten into her compost again.

“You got a minute?” he asked, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets.

Behind him, a second neighbor stood further back—Alma, the retired schoolteacher. She didn’t wave.

Nora smiled. “Sure.”

Jim’s eyes darted past her to the garden. “Just wondering if you’ve noticed anything… odd. With the weather.”

“Odd how?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Our snowmelt flooded the basement. But only on the side facing your yard.”

Alma spoke up. “I found daffodils coming up behind my shed. In January. That’s not right.”

“It’s a fluke,” Nora said lightly. “Some kind of warm pocket. We should be glad for it.”

Jim didn’t respond right away. “Bees came out two days ago,” he said finally. “Now, they’re gone.”

Nora blinked. “I didn’t see—“

“They shouldn’t have been out at all, Nora. But they were. All over our birdbath. Like they thought it was Spring. And now? Gone.” 

Alma spoke up, voice tight. “And the robins—have you heard them? They don’t sound right.

“Can’t you smell it? The air smells wrong.”

Nora smiled, even though her stomach clenched. “I think you’re imagining things. I’ve just been… lucky.”

“Luck doesn’t hum at night,” Alma said.

 

⸻

 

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

There was a humming—low, almost musical. She thought it was in the pipes, but it followed her through the house. Even in the kitchen, her ears filled with it.

She went to the window. Outside, the garden glowed faintly. The tomato vines quivered as though in slow breath, their skins glistening wet.

And where were the bees?

 

⸻

 

Clara, Nora’s daughter, hadn’t been by in weeks. Nora opened the door, half-expecting another neighbor, and nearly cried with relief at the sight of her girl.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Clara said by way of greeting. She was already stepping inside, coat unzipped, eyes scanning the living room. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Nora shut the door. “Just… gardening.”

“In January?”

Nora’s smile faltered.

 

⸻

 

They sat at the kitchen table. Nora poured tea. Clara didn’t touch hers.

“I saw your post,” she said. “I was hoping it was a joke.”

“It’s a gift,” Nora said softly. “After everything. After last summer. Don’t you think we deserve some small mercy?”

Clara’s eyes darkened. “Mom. That heat dome killed over six hundred people. You nearly—” She stopped. “Tomatoes don’t fix that.”

Nora flinched.

She remembered the muted sounds of the ambulance. The red of Clara’s hands as she held ice to her burning neck. She remembered the stillness of the emergency room, full of people who were not breathing.

That week, the grocery shelves had emptied. Power outages. Panic.

She’d lost a student—eight years old—from heatstroke. She hadn’t been able to go to the funeral.

“I’m tired of thinking about it,” Nora said. Her voice trembled. “This garden is the first thing that’s grown since then. The first thing that hasn’t died.”

Clara looked at her for a long time. Then she stood and walked to the back door. Opened it.

The air was heavy. Too warm. And the garden was no longer confined to the yard.

Vines had crept onto the deck. One was wrapped tight around the railing like a slow snake. Tomatoes dangled like jewels.

Clara stepped back inside. “You need to get rid of it.”

Nora’s head snapped up. “No.”

“It’s not natural, Mom. It’s not safe. You’re not even asking why it’s happening.”

“Because I need it to,” Nora said, her voice too loud now. “Because the world is falling apart and I have one corner where things are sweet again.”

Clara’s face softened, but her voice stayed hard. “That sweetness is killing the bees.”

 

⸻

 

Two houses down, a little boy took a bite of a tomato that rolled onto his lawn.

His mother screamed. But it was too late.

By nightfall, the vines were in Alma’s gutters, in Jim’s birdbath.

The robins had stopped singing.

Inside her house, Nora no longer answered the door. The windows fogged from the inside.

Clara came back three days later.

The house was silent.

On the windowsill sat a single tomato, perfect and warm to the touch.

Next to it, folded neatly, was a torn notebook page:

“I’m sorry. I wanted something good again.”

She found no other sign of her mother.

Only a trail of bare footprints in the frost, leading into the garden.

 

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Photo by Kamala Bright on Unsplash (Free to use under the Unsplash Licence)