She took the plan to Evelyn, who examined it between customers. Evelyn had run a small business long enough to distrust projections that did not leave room for bad weather or an unexpected bill. She circled Mary Ann's packaging estimate and asked where the fuel expense was. She also wanted to know whether the market would have space for Mary Ann every week and whether customers would keep returning when the novelty wore off.
"I don't know," Mary Ann admitted.
"Then that's the first thing you find out. You're a good farmer, Mary Ann, but you're not going to grow your way out of a mistake you can avoid with one phone call."
That afternoon she called the market coordinator. She learned what it would cost to reserve a regular stall and what records the county expected her to maintain. She also called two nearby farms and asked what they used to transport ripe, delicate produce without bruising it. The calls were awkward at first. She had spent years being the woman who knew how a farm worked, and asking basic questions made her feel exposed.
One grower told her to buy strong stackable crates instead of trying to improvise from old cardboard boxes. Another advised her to keep harvested tomatoes cool enough to protect their quality without subjecting them to handling conditions that ruined flavor. A third asked whether she had liability coverage for direct sales. Mary Ann wrote every answer down and began realizing that producing a tomato was only the first part of getting it into somebody's kitchen.
During the winter she applied for a small agricultural microloan through a local lender that worked with beginning and returning producers. The woman reviewing the application looked at Mary Ann's age and asked how long she had been farming. Mary Ann answered that she had spent twenty-seven years with cattle and three years learning tomatoes. The loan officer smiled at the distinction but requested the records anyway.
"You don't have much documented sales history," the woman said.
"Four crates," Mary Ann answered.
"Four crates?"
"Every one sold. I don't intend to borrow enough to pretend it was forty."
The loan was smaller than she had hoped, but it covered essential supplies when added to what she had saved. She refused to borrow more just because someone suggested she could. The farm still needed repairs she had been postponing for years, and the roof over her bedroom would not care how promising the garden became. She put the loan documents in a separate binder and wrote repayment dates on the calendar in large letters.
In February, on the fourth anniversary of Walter's death, Mary Ann went to the barn after breakfast instead of sitting by the window. She found his old measuring tape, checked the proposed quarter-acre plot, and marked its corners with stakes. She remembered the exact way he used to tilt his head when judging the distance between fence posts. Without thinking, she used the same motion, then stood still when the resemblance struck her. She did not cry until she had reached the house, where Gus lay sleeping by the stove.