"I can fill half a delivery truck with produce," he told her, stepping around a patch of mud. "But a truck doesn't cost half as much because I use half of it. If I call a broker, I lose a big chunk of the price. If I deliver the load myself, I lose a day of fieldwork and pay for fuel I can't really afford."
Victoria wrote it down. "How many farms in the area have the same problem?"
"Enough that it seems silly we aren't doing something together. We've talked about it. People get busy. Someone has to take responsibility for organizing the loads, sorting the quality, collecting payment, dealing with returns. And nobody can work those hours for free."
"Would farmers trust a larger company to coordinate it?"
Ethan stopped walking. "Depends whether the company wants to be a partner or wants to own the whole road."
She raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
"Meaning if you pay us just enough to keep the lights on and take all the upside because you control the trucks, that's not partnership. It's the same trap with nicer paperwork."
Victoria looked at him for a long moment. "You don't spend much time worrying about offending potential investors, do you?"
"Are you offended?"
"No," she said. "Unfortunately, you're making sense."
They visited the lower field next, where the old tractor waited beneath a tarp. Ethan explained which parts were original and which had been rebuilt so often he no longer remembered who had installed them. Victoria stood beside the machine listening while he described a clutch failure that had cost him three days during planting. Then she asked whether he had considered replacing it.
"Every time I walk past it," Ethan said. "Then I check the bank balance and decide nostalgia is an excellent quality in equipment."
She laughed. He found himself doing the same, though nothing about the situation had changed. It was strange how telling somebody the truth without needing to protect them from it could make a hard thing feel lighter.
Around noon, Lily came out of the farmhouse carrying three peanut butter sandwiches in a plastic container. She had insisted that a business meeting on a farm required lunch, which Ethan had accepted as one of her more reasonable executive decisions. Victoria sat on the porch steps, ignoring the clean kitchen chairs inside, and ate her sandwich with both hands.
"Do you always eat outside?" she asked Lily.
"Only when Dad hasn't had time to wash the table."
"Lily," Ethan said.
"What? It's true."
Victoria tilted her head. "And what does your father do when he has time?"
Lily gave the question careful thought. "He reads stories. And he fixes stuff. And sometimes he dances while making pancakes, but he says that isn't dancing."
"It isn't," Ethan said. "It's a practical movement to keep the batter from burning."
"He sings too," Lily added.
Victoria looked delighted. "Now that I would like to hear."
"You and half the county will be disappointed," Ethan told her.