Nora drove to Ames on a Sunday in March. She found Kevin in the garage behind his house sitting in a folding chair staring at a car he didn’t have parts to fix. She brought groceries. He told her to leave. She set the bags on the kitchen counter and talked to Tammy for an hour while Kevin stayed in the garage. When she left the groceries were still on the counter. The next day Tammy texted her. He ate the soup. Thank you.
Diane called in April. Seven minutes. She had a new project at work. She asked how Raymond was but the question came late in the conversation after she told him about the project and it had the feel of something remembered rather than something meant.
Spring warmed into early summer. The corn was planted, the beans were in, the elevators hummed with grain from the previous year’s reserves. Harold managed the operation with the quiet efficiency of a man who had been doing this work for half a century. Nobody outside the county knew the farm was anything other than what it appeared to be.
One Saturday evening in late May, Nora and Raymond sat on the trailer step watching the sun go down over the fields. Lily and Sam were asleep inside. The air smelled of turned soil and grass and the light was the color of old gold. “What did Mom used to say about this place?” Nora asked. Raymond thought about it. “She said a lot of things.” “Tell me one.” “She said the land would outlast all of us so we better make sure we deserve it.”
Nora was quiet for a while. “Do you miss her?” “Every day. Every hour of every day.” “I think she’d want you to come inside. Out of this trailer. Back into the house.” “Maybe.” “Not maybe, Dad. She’d want you warm. She’d want you comfortable. She’d want you surrounded by the things you built together.”
Raymond looked out at the fields. The corn was knee high already. Green rows running straight to the horizon. The grain elevator stood against the sky tall and gray and solid. Everything he owned, everything he had pretended to lose. “I think it might be time,” he said. Nora looked at him. “Time for what?” “Time to stop this.”
She didn’t ask what he meant. She waited. “I need to bring them all here,” Raymond said. “All four of you. I need to tell you the truth.” Nora set her coffee down. “What truth, Dad?” But Raymond shook his head. “Saturday. Next Saturday. Can you come? And ask Marcus and Diane and Kevin?” Nora studied his face in the fading light. Whatever she saw there made her nod without pressing further. “I’ll make the calls,” she said.