"We might need it someday," he said.
"We haven't needed it in six years. We need cash this week." Jenny did not soften the truth, but she did not push him beyond it. "You can keep a machine because it means something, Tom. Just be honest about whether you're keeping it as a tool or as a memory."
Tom went to the shed and pulled the tarp back. Dust rose in a pale cloud, and a mouse darted from the shadows. He walked around the baler, remembering an autumn when he and Harold had worked until dark replacing a bearing while rain threatened from the west. Harold had cursed the awkward bolts, then laughed when the machine finally ran smoothly. The memory lived in Tom's hands as clearly as in his mind. He stood there for several minutes before returning to the house.
"List it," he said.
Jenny glanced up. "You sure?"
"Dad liked a working machine. He'd be the first to tell me this one isn't working for us." Tom reached for the old photographs they kept in a tin near the telephone. He found one showing Harold beside the baler in a field of late summer hay and set it on the kitchen shelf. "I'll keep that," he said. "I don't need the rest of the steel to remember him."
The baler sold the next day to a young farmer who wanted a repair project and had the time to give it one. The price was not miraculous, but it covered a meaningful portion of the immediate gap and reduced the amount they would need from the bank. Tom helped load it, explained what was missing, and handed over a folder of maintenance notes. The buyer promised nothing about restoring it, and Tom did not ask him to. As the trailer left the drive, he felt sad, but the sadness came without regret.
Later that morning he paid Gary's tire invoice in full. Gary protested, saying they could have waited until after harvest. Tom told him he had borrowed the tractor with a promise to be responsible for it and meant to keep that promise. Gary took the check, looked at it, and then asked whether Tom wanted help filling seed boxes that afternoon. Tom laughed for the first time in a week. "I think you'll find a way to help whether I say yes or not."
"Probably," Gary agreed. "But I prefer to be invited."
They began planting the unaffected fields on the next suitable morning. Tom and Gary walked the boundaries, reviewed the work plan, and agreed that the Creek Forty and its approach would remain off-limits until Dana cleared it. The borrowed tractor ran smoothly, though Tom found himself listening to every minor change in engine pitch. He had always been attentive to equipment; now his attention had a sharper edge. He was learning that caution did not have to mean fear, but the difference took effort.