One Shots with Chris Evans

The Grove

A quiet stillness falls over the Georgia farm as the sun sets on an autumn night in October. These were always Hattie's favorite moments on the farm as a young child. Even as a teen many of her friends didn't quite understand why she'd rather sit out on a porch, or walk through the pecan trees during October when there was a high school football game just a few miles up the road. Or why she'd rather use the little bit of free time she had on the weekends to sit and stare up at the speckled night sky with her grandmother instead of heading into the city for a trip to the mall.

Those things weren't for her. She did graduate high school and went off to college but even then it was just an hour away drive, leaving her the opportunity to still stay on the farm. She hadn't even wanted to go to college. Being one of those small town cases that just desired to fall in love, marry and have her own family. Her friends wanting to find adventure no less than three hundred miles away from the country life, but for Hattie Mae Jones there was no greater want than to stay right where God had planted her. To fill the farm with a sweet little one's laughter while her husband could have whatever career his heart desired. But for her, a life on the farm as a mom and wife was all she ever truly wanted.

But her family insisted on college. It was the time of life that they'd never gotten to experience for themselves, instead living the dream that Hattie longed for herself. "You need to give yourself options, Hattie. There's not many around here for you as far as fellas," her father told her while her mother hands her a stack of college brochures over a typical family breakfast her junior year of high school. "Get ya an education, meet someone and go live your life."

Life for her was on the farm however. There was enough history in the location that she knew it's future could be just as grand. She'd been made fun of by friends who couldn't understand her fascination with the pecan grove that was started on the land in the 1700s. Couldn't understand the rich history of it. But it's what filled her heart with joy. 4,300 acres, stretching over six miles of nothing but glorious pecan trees.

She'd completed her duty to her parents insistence and received a degree. A degree in agriculture no less, all in preparedness to use her knowledge to further the life of the grove. Unfortunately to her parents dismay however, she'd not secured a husband in the process. Apparently even in college there is a lack of understanding and allowance for a woman to have her own mindset when it comes to her heart's desires. Once again being ridiculed when she'd turn down a date in favor of an evening with her Memaw in their sleepy town.

Hattie's heart was already set, lost long ago as a child to the pecan grove. No city boy or outsider would understand, and even the locals wanted to escape Dodge as quickly as possible. So unless a man just happened to walk right up to her door with a simple knock, her wish for a farm family was slowly drifting away.

Drifting away much like her own family had been doing, one by one. Her grandfather was first, taken by a heart attack out in the middle of the grove, three miles in. His refusal for a cell phone kept anyone from reaching him in time. Her parents losing their own lives while on a short weekend trip into the city by a drunk driver. And then just three short months ago old age had claimed her grandmother, leaving Hattie alone on the grove.

Her brother came into town from California, just long enough for the funeral. A funeral that was filled to capacity in the small side road country church. But she swears as soon as the first bit of dirt hit her casket he was up and gone again, telling her it was just too difficult to be back. He'd graduated high school in 2000 and had been gone ever since out side of a random Christmas visit when he wasn't convincing their parents to fly cross country to him. He was one of those that never desired to be stuck in small town life. "I'm meant to do great things, Hattie Mae," she remembers him telling her on the night of his high school graduation. "And those great things can't happen here." Just a couple months later, her parents were thrusting college pamphlets in her face, to schools all up and down the East and West Coast.