arrived separately, not to argue again about the trees, he said, but to make sure his daughter understood the papers placed in front of her. Clara did not object. She had discovered in the bank statements that understanding a document before signing it was a form of courage she had badly underestimated.
Henderson inspected the house with his hat held away from the walls. He noted the patched ceiling, the porch posts, the loosened railing, and the plaster crack beside the parlor window. Clara showed him the roof repairs she had made and the ledger of household expenses she had begun keeping. At the kitchen table she put down a list of items she could sell without reducing the property itself: an unused wagon, two old plows, a surplus stove, and some orchard equipment. Henderson studied the list with more attention than he had given her face.
"You prepared this yourself?" he asked.
"Yes. I checked the values with Mr. Sutter at the feed store. He said the wagon might bring more if I replace one wheel bearing first."
Henderson made a note. "Your grandmother was methodical about payments until the last year. I wish we had been approached earlier."
"She was ill," Clara replied. "I don't think she wanted anyone to know how bad it was."
"The bank can only work with information it receives."
That was the closest Henderson came to sympathy, and Clara did not ask him for more. When they walked the field afterward, she explained the willow cuttings and why she had chosen the flood margin. He listened with the distracted politeness of a man whose interest in agriculture extended only to the value agriculture might produce for a loan. At the fence he looked at the rows and then at Blackwell's cultivated fields beyond the creek. His gaze lingered there longer than it did on Clara's experiment.
"Mr. Blackwell has expressed interest in buying the whole parcel," Henderson said. "It would simplify matters considerably."
"For the bank," Clara answered.
He gave her a thin smile. "For everyone, potentially."
"For me, it would end the possibility of keeping my grandmother's place."
Henderson looked at her seriously for the first time. "Miss Jennings, possibilities are not payments. If you can present a plan showing how the arrears will be cured, we can discuss it. If not, there are laws and procedures we must follow."
Clara stood on the fence rail with the field behind her and made herself ask the question. "How long would you give me if I could pay part of the arrears now and show where the rest would come from?"
He looked toward Ben, who said nothing. Then Henderson took out his notebook. A small sale of equipment and a payment of two hundred dollars could support a request for a short extension, he told her, provided she submitted a written schedule and agreed to a follow-up review. It was not a promise of approval. He made that clear twice. Clara asked him to write the terms down so she could consider them, and for once the bank manager did as she asked without sounding amused.