After the cars were gone, Clara walked each row again. She counted forty-eight cuttings with visible buds, forty-three with roots she could observe without disturbing them, and many others still giving no sign at all. Some had dark soft bases that worried her. Some had been loosened by the flood and might never establish. She entered the numbers in her notebook and wrote that she was encouraged, then struck out the word encouraged and replaced it with hopeful. The second word felt more honest because hope admitted the part she still could not know.
She cried that afternoon, standing beside the third row with mud on her knees. They were not graceful tears, and she was glad no one was near enough to see them. She cried for Evelyn, who had never seen these particular branches leaf out, and for Arthur, who had spent so many years fighting the creek. She cried because a banker could still take the place away and because the tiny green buds did not care about money. Then she wiped her eyes and went to repair the gate latch before it became one more thing she could not afford.
The wagon sold for ninety-two dollars the following Monday. Ben helped load it and stayed while the buyer tested its wheel bearings with the practiced suspicion of a man who had been fooled by equipment before. Clara sold a spare plow, the old stove, and several pieces of harness that no longer fit any animal on the property. She counted the proceeds in the kitchen, added the earnings from her extra shifts, and found that she could make the bank's first requested payment without selling Evelyn's sewing machine. That small victory meant more to her than a stranger would have understood.
Ben watched her put the bills in an envelope. "You did the work," he said.
"We did the wagon together."
"You would've found another way without me."
Clara did not deny it, though she knew the repair would have taken her longer and might have cost more. Her father poured himself a cup of coffee and stood by the sink looking toward the back field. The cuttings were barely visible from the kitchen window, but he had heard what Vance found. Clara wondered if he would ask about it. Instead he said, "I'm glad you didn't have to sell your grandmother's machine," and drove back to town before supper.
At First Mercantile Bank, Henderson counted her payment and signed a receipt. He referred the proposal for a short extension to the bank committee, promising a decision by the following week. Clara asked him whether the property could be reassessed in light of the repairs she had made to the house. He said it could, though an assessment cost money, and she told him she would first consult the probate lawyer so she understood her rights. His eyebrows rose slightly, but he did not object.
The lawyer, Abel Finch, had known Evelyn for many years and seemed relieved that Clara was asking questions rather than treating the bank's letters as fate. He was sixty-three, with tobacco stains on two fingers and an office above the drugstore that smelled of paper and furniture polish. He