Last Tuesday I was standing at the sink peeling potatoes when the gardening show came on the little radio by the window. The host took a call from a woman asking about frost-hardy tomatoes. The caller said her mother always told her frost won’t touch a stubborn vine. She said it twice, like she was repeating it exactly.

I set the knife down. Nobody says that. That was Mama’s line, word for word, same slow way she dragged it out when she was thinking.

I wiped my hands and stood there listening until the show went to a commercial. Then I picked up the phone and called the station.

The producer was nice enough but said they don’t give out caller information. I told him it was important. He asked why. I said the woman used a phrase my mother used to say and I thought she might be family. He got quiet for a second. Then he told me the county she called from. That was all he could do.

I sat at the kitchen table with the phone book for that county spread open. There was only one listing that matched the first name the producer had mentioned. Elizabeth Barnes. I stared at the number for a long time. My hands felt cold even though the house was warm.

I almost put the book away. It had been sixty years. What if it wasn’t her? What if it was and she didn’t want to hear from me? But the line about the vine kept running through my head. Mama used to say it every spring when she set out the tomato plants. She said it the day they took my sister away too.

The judge in 1959 said we were too young to be split but our parents couldn’t agree on anything else.

Daddy got Elizabeth and moved to Tennessee. Mama kept me in Virginia. I was five. I remember standing on the porch holding Mama’s skirt while Daddy loaded Elizabeth’s little suitcase into the car. She looked back once. I don’t think she cried. I did though.

After Mama died in 1971 I tried to find them. I had no address and I didn’t even know if Daddy had kept the same last name. I wrote letters to a couple towns in Tennessee but nothing came back. Life kept going. I got married, had two boys, buried my husband ten years ago. The wondering never really stopped but it got quieter.

That Tuesday the wondering got loud again. I dialed the number before I could talk myself out of it.

The phone rang three times. A woman answered with just “Hello.”

Her voice sounded exactly like mine. Same pitch, same little catch at the end of the word. I couldn’t say anything for a second.

“Is this Elizabeth?” I finally asked.

“Yes,” she said. She sounded careful, like she was waiting for a sales call.

“This is Margaret,” I said. “From Virginia. I think I’m your sister.”

Nobody spoke for a moment. I could hear a clock ticking on her end and some kind of bird outside.

She said, “Margaret. Little Margaret?”

“I’m seventy-two now,” I told her. “But yes.”

She let out a breath that sounded like it had been held a long time. “I used to wonder if you were still out there. Mama’s name was Helen, right?”

We talked for almost an hour. She told me Daddy had passed in 1984 and she had two daughters and a son. I told her about my boys. She asked if I still had any of Mama’s things. I said I had the old radio and a couple of her aprons. She said she had a pressed flower from Mama’s garden that Daddy had kept in a Bible.

At one point she got quiet again. Then she said, “You know, I called that radio show because the tomatoes here are struggling this year. I almost didn’t call in.”

I told her I almost didn’t pick up the phone book.

She laughed a little, the same short laugh I make when something is funny but not really. Then she said, “I don’t know what to do with this yet.”

I said I didn’t either. We agreed to talk again on Friday. She gave me her address and I wrote it down on the back of an envelope.

After we hung up I sat at the table a long time. The potatoes were still in the sink. The radio had gone to the news. I kept thinking about how easy it would have been to turn the dial that day and miss the whole thing. I also kept thinking about how I never tried harder after Mama died. I told myself I didn’t have enough to go on, but maybe I was scared of what I’d find.

Elizabeth said she’d like to meet someday if I wanted. I told her I did. But sitting there with the envelope in my hand, I wasn’t sure what I’d say when we were face to face. Sixty years is a long time to fill with one phone call. I don’t know if one more call on Friday will be enough either.

I stayed at the table with the envelope under my hand. The paper was thin and the address was in my own writing, which looked shakier than usual. Outside the window the neighbor’s dog barked once and then stopped. Inside it was just the hum of the refrigerator and my own breathing. The thing is, when we were talking I kept wanting to ask her if she remembered the garden. Mama’s tomatoes were always the best in the county because she babied those vines like they were her own children. “Frost won’t touch a stubborn vine,” she’d tell us while we pulled weeds. Elizabeth would nod and keep working. I was the one who asked questions. “What if it does touch them, Mama?” And she’d just smile and say the same thing again.
On the phone Elizabeth didn’t bring up the garden until I did. “Do you still grow anything?” she asked. I told her no, not since the boys left home. She said she had a small patch but the tomatoes weren’t doing well this year. That’s why she called the show. “I guess I was hoping for some advice that sounded like home,” she said. Her saying that made my throat tight. I wanted to tell her I had the same feeling when I heard her voice. But instead I just said the line back to her. “Frost won’t touch a stubborn vine.” She was quiet after that. Then she said, “You sound just like her sometimes.”
We left it at talking again on Friday. I put the envelope in the drawer with the old letters I never sent. The drawer sticks a little when you pull it open. I had to jiggle it to get it closed again. I got the part wrong where I thought not knowing was the hardest thing. Knowing and still not being sure what comes next is harder. But the call happened. That part is done.