A woman hopped refreshingly out of her car into the parking lot of the farmer’s market, allowing herself five seconds of luxurious stretching.  This was the first farmer's market of the year, and she was excited.  She dragged her whiny daughter to the stand that stood second to last in the back row, where she found the juiciest and ripest tomatoes.  Although she didn’t particularly like the grainy tanginess of ripe tomatoes, her husband loved them.  And whatever her husband wanted, she had no choice but to get.

“Good day, Sarah!” greeted the vendor behind the stand.  Sarah smiled.

“Good day, Laura. How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s going swimmingly,” said the vendor.  “Your daughter Annabel is growing into such a beautiful young lady.  No doubt all the boys in school will have their eyes on her,” Laura winked.

“Don’t encourage her,” Sarah grumbled, but she couldn't help smiling as her daughter suddenly quieted, stood ram-rod straight, and puffed out her chest.  She flipped her blond curls over her shoulder as if she knew she was the spotlight of their conversation.

Laura leaned forward and whispered, “You should have more children.  You don’t want to waste the precious genes you share with your husband, do you?”

Sarah didn’t answer, but groped the tomatoes in front of her as her thoughts wandered back to the two times she became pregnant after Annabel.  She snorted. My husband’s precious genes.

She lay on the hospital bed, undergoing ultrasound.  The radiologist ran her detector slowly over Sarah’s belly and whispered, “It’s a girl!”

Then came the gruff response, “When can we file for a termination?”

Sarah gasped.  “What? Why, John, why? She’s perfectly healthy, isn’t she?” Sarah searched the doctor's face.

The doctor nodded, suddenly mute.

“She’s a girl,” John said. “I want a son.”

“I don't care, she’s my child! You have no right to take away my flesh and blood."

“One daughter is enough.” John said. “And you listen to me. Or else.”

The radiologist glanced uneasily between the two.

“We can try for a son…next time!” Sarah said timidly. "But spare this one please."

John was unshakeable.  And it was done.

The second time, Sarah didn't say anything.  All she knew was that she didn’t want to lie in the same bed as John anymore.

“Hey, check out these Japanese cucumbers I harvested yesterday,” Laura said, snapping Sarah out of her flashback.  The cucumbers had spikes.  Catching Sarah's expression Laura quickly said, “They’re bitter, but healthy!  The bitter-er, the better, in this case.” Laura grinned.  “Just remember to scrub the spikes off first before you eat them.  Wanna try?”

Sarah looked down at her swollen belly, and decided they would be good for both her and the baby. “Sure,” she said.  She pushed a container of tomatoes towards Laura.  “I’ll take these as well.”

Laura rolled each kind of vegetable into a plastic bag, and then put the two bags into another one.  She handed the bag over to Sarah, who closed her eyes and felt the weight of plump earth hanging by the four fingers of her right hand.  Sarah raised her left wrist to her eyes, and almost fell over in shock.

Oh shite, it’s 11:30 already! Her heart thumped in fear.  She hadn’t been late for a long time.

Sarah quickly paid and said goodbye to Laura, and not waiting for Laura's reply, sprinted to the car, cursing under her breath as Annabel wobbled after her. “Mommy, wait up!”

The car roared to life, and Sarah sped out of the parking lot.  Shoot, shoot, shoot, Sarah muttered. She drove her foot down harder on the gas.  But suddenly she noticed lights flashing in her side and center mirrors.  Her heart collapsed as she pulled over to the side of the road.  She checked her watch, and saw it was 11:45.  The policeman walked over to the driver’s window to give her a speeding ticket.  My life is over, Sarah thought.  My life is over.  Meanwhile, Annabel trembled silently in the backseat.

Sarah finally burst through the front door with Annabel at 12:15 PM.  She prayed that John had not come home yet, that he wouldn’t know she was 15 minutes late, but her soul plummeted at the sight of John on the couch, crossing his arms and blasting the TV.  When he saw her, John turned off the TV and the house entered an ocean of silence.  Sarah caught a glimpse of his golf clubs in the corner, covered in fresh grass, staining the carpet she had just cleaned earlier that morning.

She tried to sound cheery.  “Look, I bought the tomatoes you like!” She jiggled the plastic bag, and the rustling filled the silence.  “The vendor also recommended these Japanese cucumbers.  They’re supposed to be healthy, but they’re a bit bitte-”

“You're late,” John said.

“I’m really sorry.” Sarah stammered.  She opened her mouth to make an excuse, but John spoke first.

“What’s this?” he asked.

He yanked Sarah’s purse from her arm and pulled out a sheet of paper by the corner.  Sarah cursed herself for not pushing it into her purse all the way.

“A speeding ticket?” John screamed. “You’re costing this family so much money!”

He finally registered Annabel’s presence.  “You, go to your room.”  Sarah was given half-a-minute of peace as John led their daughter to her room and shut the door with a concomitant clink and grind of keys.

He came back.  “Why?” he asked again.

Sarah opened her mouth, “Well, I wanted to come back earl-”

“You just have nothing better to do,” John cut her off.  He turned over to the bag of groceries.  “Why did you buy these funky cucumbers?”

Sarah’s heart rose, for she saw this as a chance to change the subject.  “As I was saying earlier, the vendor said they’re Japanese cucumbers.  They’re bitter but-”

“You buy bitter cucumbers for me?  What kind of wife are you, giving her man bitter food? Taste your own medicine!” John picked up a cucumber with the plastic bag, pried open Sarah’s mouth, and shoved it in.

“-they’re healthy,” she mumbled, tears streaming down her face.  The cucumbers were supposed to be scrubbed of the spikes first, not eaten like this.

“Ew, stop it,” John grimaced. “I hate tears.  Do you want me to slap you?”

Sarah shook her head vehemently, she couldn’t speak.  She tried to take out the bristles from her mouth after spitting out the cucumber, but to no avail.  She rubbed the tears from her face, but new ones lurched out to replace the lost.

John slapped her.  Sarah cried out and crumpled to the floor.  He tore out her bun, and then she couldn’t see, for her hair stuck in front of her face.

He slapped her again, then dragged her along the carpet by her hair.

Sarah screamed.

“Shut up.  Annabel’s gonna hear you.” John kicked her against the cabinet below the sink and grasped a ripe tomato from the grocery bag.  He smashed it against Sarah’s face, and she felt a snap in her nose.

And then there were no words, only the slaps and thuds and muffled choking on spikes with red liquid that could’ve been tomato juice, blood, or both.  He must really love me to do this...I deserve this.  She stopped resisting.
*    *    *
The next morning, Sarah inched painfully out of her car into the parking lot of the farmer’s market, allowing herself five seconds to find her balance.  She dragged her bruised legs to the stand that stood second to last in one of the back rows, where she found the juiciest and ripest tomatoes.  Although she didn’t particularly like the grainy tanginess of ripe tomatoes, her husband loved them.  And whatever her husband wanted, she had no choice but to get.

As she walked towards Laura's stand, Sarah arranged her hair in a far left-part so that it would fall and shield most of her face.  She had left Annabel sleeping in so that she wouldn’t see her bruises.

“Hey, looks like those tomatoes disappeared quickly!” the vendor smiled.  But her smile quickly disappeared as Sarah approached. “Oh my heavens, what happened to you?  Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

Laura’s frowned.  “Did somebody hit you?  You seem to have received more than a few blows.”

“Uh, maybe, yeah…” Sarah fumbled for a plausible explanation.

“Wow,” Laura said, “you should call the police.”

“No, no, it’s okay, it’s no big deal,” Sarah replied quickly.  Her mind drifted to the idea of Annabel, fatherless, and she didn’t like it.

Laura raised her eyebrows, but she judging from Sarah's stoic and guarded expression, she assumed that Sarah didn’t want to talk about it.  Laura’s face crinkled with smiles again as she asked, “So how were the cucumbers?”

Sarah ran her tongue over the spikes in the roof of her mouth.  She had gotten most of them out, but a few were still stuck.  “They were painful. Very bitter,” Sarah said.

“Ahh, but that’s exactly why they’re healthy!” Laura exclaimed.  “They provide so many nutrients and antioxidants and are great for injured people.” Like you, said Laura's eyebrows. "They're bitter because of flavonoids that protect them against herbivores."

Sarah wished that she could turn into a Japanese cucumber. Laura asked her if she wanted to buy more of them, but Sarah declined.  She grabbed firmly at the tomatoes.

Laura asked. “Are you sure that's all you want?"

"Yes."

Sarah glanced at her wristwatch.  11:15 AM.

“So…how’s life?” The vendor attempted to strike up a conversation as she handed the tomatoes over, but Sarah ignored her question.

“I’m really sorry, I have to go, I hope you understand.”  Sarah knew Laura wouldn’t understand; she said it for herself.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Laura said, a bit uneasy.  What had she done to cause this sudden distance?

Laura watched Sarah stumble with hurried but heavy steps towards her car, sporting her swollen belly.  She suspected that Sarah’s story about the injuries wasn’t true.  But she couldn’t think of any other causes.

She shrugged.  Not her problem.  She rearranged the tomatoes in front of her back into neat rows.