![\"No](\"https:\/\/scontent-dfw6-2.xx.fbcdn.net\/v\/t39.30808-6\/887064739_122135429499249733_7897993725292994442_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_tt6&cstp=mx1086x1448&ctp=p526x296&_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=3kPS1Xcevo4Q7kNvwEE8gna&_nc_oc=AdpRQ3D1Vcmv5ljq3YARc6HFjwj6glPPiDkNT6ILvUupY00iYnxWtotjMDPleG76VLc&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw6-2.xx&_nc_gid=Zncrc6-HJqsrzF2bkidHYQ&_nc_ss=792a8&oh=00_AQRag7UhDXkKZk7onvq4Edt2JdIrNuWyoJhnQH0KYjAsUw&oe=6AF13D8D\")
<\/p>\nAt the end of the row, about two hundred yards ahead, where Arlen\u2019s corn met the fence line, a small figure stood in the stubble. Silver hair. A barn coat that was too big for her. Dad\u2019s barn coat. The brown Carhartt with the torn left pocket. I shut the combine down. I sat there for a moment in the sudden silence. Then I opened the cab door and climbed down the ladder. I walked toward her through the corn stubble.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She was standing in the stubble, alone. No car that I could see. She must have walked. A mile from the home place, across the fields, along the fence line, in October, at sixty-four years old. Her shoes were caked with mud. Her face was red from the cold wind. She was holding something of Dad\u2019s. It was a notebook. A small, spiral-bound notebook. Green cover, faded almost gray. The kind you buy at the farm supply store for a dollar. Water-stained at the corners. A pencil stuck through the spiral. I knew it immediately. It was Dad\u2019s field book.<\/p>\n
He carried one every year. Kept it in the toolbox in the combine cab. He wrote down everything in it. Planting dates. Seed varieties. Rainfall. Yields by field. Fertilizer rates. What broke, what he fixed, what it cost. He\u2019d buy a new one every January at the co-op in Primghar. He\u2019d keep the old ones in a shoebox on the shelf in the machine shed. I\u2019d never once read one.<\/p>\n
I stopped about ten feet from her.<\/p>\n
Neither of us said anything for a long time. The wind blew through the corn stubble, rattling the dry husks.<\/p>\n
\u201cElaine,\u201d I said finally.<\/p>\n
\u201cMark,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her voice was shaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to run it,\u201d she said. \u201cThe combine. Sunday. I sat up in the cab for an hour. I couldn\u2019t even figure out how to turn on the monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughed. It wasn\u2019t a happy laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been married to a farmer for fourteen years,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t run a single piece of machinery on that place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI found this,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the toolbox. Behind the seat. I was looking for the manual.\u201d<\/p>\n
She held out the notebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are nineteen more,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the machine shed. In a shoebox. I found those too.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked down at the notebook in her hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI read them, Mark,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of them. I\u2019ve been reading them since Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
She opened the green notebook. She turned to a page near the back.<\/p>\n
Then she held it out to me.<\/p>\n
I took it. My hands were cold. The paper was soft from being handled.<\/p>\n
It was Dad\u2019s handwriting. Blocky capital letters, pressed hard into the page with a carpenter\u2019s pencil.<\/p>\n
AUG 3 \u2014 SPRAYED NORTH 1\/4. 2 PT GLYPHOSATE. WIND 6 MPH SW.<\/em><\/p>\n AUG 3 \u2014 MARK FIXED THE SPRAYER BOOM. BETTER THAN I COULD.<\/em><\/p>\n I turned the page.<\/p>\n AUG 9 \u2014 RAIN .4 IN.<\/em><\/p>\n AUG 9 \u2014 TALKED TO HAROLD BAUER ABOUT THE WILL. NEED TO FIX IT. GOING TO GIVE MARK THE LAND. LIFE ESTATE FOR ELAINE. SHE NEEDS THE INCOME. MARK NEEDS THE GROUND. APPT AUG 22.<\/em><\/p>\n I read it three times.<\/p>\n August ninth. Two years ago.<\/p>\n August twenty-second would have been the appointment.<\/p>\n Dad died on August nineteenth.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t breathe.<\/p>\n I looked up at Elaine. She was crying now. Not loudly. Just tears running down her red, wind-chapped cheeks.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was going to change it,\u201d she said. \u201cThree days. He was three days away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKeep reading,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I turned back. Further. Years further.<\/p>\n Every notebook was there. She\u2019d brought them all. They were in a canvas bag she had over her shoulder. She pulled them out one by one and handed them to me.<\/p>\n 2007 \u2014 MAY 14 \u2014 MARK PLANTED THE EAST 80 BY HIMSELF. FIRST TIME. STRAIGHTEST ROWS I\u2019VE EVER SEEN.<\/em><\/p>\n 2009 \u2014 OCT 2 \u2014 MARK FIXED THE COMBINE FEEDERHOUSE. SAVED $2,000.<\/em><\/p>\n 2012 \u2014 JULY 19 \u2014 DROUGHT. MARK SAID PLANT THE COVER CROP ANYWAY. HE WAS RIGHT.<\/em><\/p>\n 2015 \u2014 MARCH 3 \u2014 MARK TURNED DOWN THE JOB AT THE ELEVATOR. MORE MONEY. SAID HE\u2019D RATHER STAY. DON\u2019T KNOW WHAT I DID TO DESERVE HIM.<\/em><\/p>\n 2019 \u2014 NOV 11 \u2014 LAST BEANS IN. MARK RAN 18 HRS STRAIGHT. TOLD HIM TO GO HOME. HE WOULDN\u2019T.<\/em><\/p>\n And on the inside cover of every single notebook, every year, the same line.<\/p>\n In the same blocky handwriting.<\/p>\n SOMEDAY THIS IS ALL MARK\u2019S. HE EARNED IT.<\/em><\/p>\n I stood in the corn stubble at the end of Arlen\u2019s row, holding nineteen of my father\u2019s field books, and for the first time since I was eight years old, I cried.<\/p>\n Really cried. The kind that comes up from somewhere you didn\u2019t know was there.<\/p>\n Elaine didn\u2019t say anything. She just stood there.<\/p>\n Then she stepped forward and put her hand on my arm.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cMark, I swear to you. I didn\u2019t know any of this.\u201d<\/p>\n I wiped my face with my sleeve.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy\u2019d you do it?\u201d I asked. \u201cWhy\u2019d you give it to them?\u201d<\/p>\n She was quiet for a long time.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I was afraid,\u201d she said finally.<\/p>\n \u201cOf what?\u201d<\/p>\n She looked out at the fields. At Arlen\u2019s corn. At Dad\u2019s beans a mile west.<\/p>\n \u201cOf being alone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter Dale died,\u201d she said, \u201cI\u2019d sit in that kitchen every night by myself. You\u2019d go back to your little house on the east eighty. The crew would go home. And I\u2019d sit there with nothing but the clock ticking.\u201d<\/p>\n She swallowed.<\/p>\n \u201cMy boys never call,\u201d she said. \u201cThey never visit. Brad calls on my birthday. Kyle sends a card at Christmas. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBrad called in September,\u201d she said. \u201cHe said if I left him and Kyle the land, they\u2019d come home more. They\u2019d visit. They\u2019d bring the grandkids for Thanksgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n She shook her head.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said the land would give them a reason to come back,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I believed him. Because I wanted to believe him. Because I wanted my boys back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you,\u201d she said. \u201cI never knew what you thought of me. Fourteen years, Mark. You were always polite. Always thanked me for supper. Always fixed my faucets.\u201d<\/p>\n She looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I always felt like you were waiting,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me to be gone. So you could have your dad\u2019s farm back the way it was before I came.\u201d<\/p>\n I stared at her.<\/p>\n \u201cElaine,\u201d I said. \u201cI never once wanted you gone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow was I supposed to know that?\u201d she said. \u201cYou never said anything. Neither did Dale. You two would sit at that table and talk about seed corn and yield maps, and I\u2019d sit there like a stranger.\u201d<\/p>\n She wiped her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cYou Lindgren men,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t say anything. You just assume everybody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n That was what Marcy had said. Almost word for word.<\/p>\n Quiet men don\u2019t say things. They assume you know.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said. \u201cI should have told you. I should have told you I was glad Dad married you. That you made him happy. That I\u2019d never seen him laugh like that since my mom died.\u201d<\/p>\n Elaine put her hand over her mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never said that,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n \u201cI know,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m saying it now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe beans,\u201d Elaine said. \u201cMark, I know I don\u2019t have the right to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen don\u2019t ask,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n She flinched.<\/p>\n I held up Dad\u2019s field book.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t ask for the beans,\u201d I said. \u201cNot for the beans. If I go back, it\u2019s not because of the beans.\u201d<\/p>\n She looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cThen why would you go back?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n I looked at the notebook in my hands. At the line on the inside cover.\u00a0Someday this is all Mark\u2019s. He earned it.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBecause Dad wrote it down,\u201d I said. \u201cNineteen times. And because you walked a mile across a cornfield in his coat to show me.\u201d<\/p>\n I turned toward Arlen\u2019s combine. Arlen had climbed down from the grain cart and was standing beside it, leaning on his cane. He\u2019d been watching the whole thing.<\/p>\n \u201cArlen,\u201d I called. \u201cI need a couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n Arlen was quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n \u201cTake the Case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n I stared at him.<\/p>\n \u201cYour combine?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwo combines go faster than one,\u201d Arlen said. \u201cI\u2019ll run Dale\u2019s. You run mine. Ron can haul. Deb can run the cart. Marcy can drive the second truck. She\u2019s done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n He limped toward us through the stubble.<\/p>\n \u201cMy corn\u2019ll keep,\u201d he said. \u201cCorn\u2019s patient. Beans aren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cArlen,\u201d I said. \u201cYour knees.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy knees have been bad for twenty years,\u201d Arlen said. \u201cThey\u2019ll be bad tomorrow too.\u201d<\/p>\n He stopped in front of Elaine. He took off his seed cap.<\/p>\n \u201cMrs. Lindgren,\u201d he said politely. \u201cDale was my neighbor for forty years. I\u2019d have done this for him. I\u2019ll do it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Elaine started crying again.<\/p>\n \u201cArlen,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t pay you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDidn\u2019t ask you to,\u201d Arlen said.<\/p>\n He put his cap back on.<\/p>\n \u201cOut here,\u201d he said, \u201cwe don\u2019t keep score.\u201d<\/p>\n We ran beans for two days straight.<\/p>\n Arlen ran Dad\u2019s combine. He\u2019d never run a Deere before, only Case, but he figured out the monitor in about ten minutes. He said Dad had shown him once, back in 2018, during a coffee break at the co-op.<\/p>\n I ran Arlen\u2019s Case. It was older and louder and the cab smelled like forty years of coffee and diesel. But it ran.<\/p>\n Word got around.<\/p>\n By noon on the first day, three more neighbors showed up. Jim Vandermeer brought his grain cart from three miles south. The Hoogeveen brothers brought a semi from Sanborn. Pastor Dale from the Methodist church, who was also named Dale and had been my father\u2019s friend since grade school, showed up at two o\u2019clock with a cooler of sandwiches.<\/p>\n Ron hauled grain from dawn to midnight. Deb ran the cart so fast I swear she was flying. Marcy drove the second truck, singing hymns over the CB radio.<\/p>\n Elaine fed everyone.<\/p>\n She set up the long table in the machine shed. She made roast beef and potatoes and green beans with bacon. She made sandwiches and coffee and three pans of brownies. She drove meals out to the field in the back of Dad\u2019s pickup, which she\u2019d finally learned to drive without grinding the gears.<\/p>\n We lost some.<\/p>\n I won\u2019t pretend we didn\u2019t. Ten days in the rain is a long time for beans. On the west end, where the field was lowest, we lost almost a third. The yield monitor read thirty-eight bushels an acre in the worst spots, when it should have been sixty.<\/p>\n But on the high ground, where the field drained better, the beans held. Fifty-five. Fifty-seven. Sixty-one on the best stretch near the shelterbelt.<\/p>\n At eleven-forty on the second night, I made the last pass on the west side.<\/p>\n The header pulled in the last row of beans. The yield monitor ticked down. The grain tank was almost full.<\/p>\n I shut it down. I sat in the dark cab with the engine ticking as it cooled.<\/p>\n Out the window, I could see Dad\u2019s combine at the other end of the field, lights on. Arlen was climbing down the ladder slowly, one rung at a time.<\/p>\n I got out. I walked across the stubble.<\/p>\n Elaine was standing at the edge of the field by Dad\u2019s pickup. She was holding a thermos of coffee. She poured me a cup.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that all of it?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s all of it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cHow much did we lose?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout eleven hundred bushels,\u201d I said. \u201cMaybe twelve.\u201d<\/p>\n She was quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s my fault,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the rain\u2019s fault,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd a little bit ours. Both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n She handed me the coffee.<\/p>\n The next Monday, Elaine called Harold Bauer.<\/p>\n She asked him to tear up the will she\u2019d signed that Tuesday. She asked him to pull Dad\u2019s notes from his file, the ones about the appointment on August twenty-second.<\/p>\n Harold had them. He\u2019d kept them for two years. He told me later he\u2019d thought about calling Elaine a dozen times, but he didn\u2019t feel it was his place.<\/p>\n \u201cI should have,\u201d he said. \u201cI should have called.\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t just give me the land.<\/p>\n I want to be clear about that. Because when I tell this story, people always assume she gave me everything. She didn\u2019t. And I didn\u2019t want her to.<\/p>\n We sat in Harold\u2019s office on a gray Thursday afternoon. Elaine, me, and Harold. Dad\u2019s nineteen field books were stacked on the corner of his desk.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s what I\u2019d like to do,\u201d Elaine said.<\/p>\n She\u2019d written it down on a legal pad. In her neat, home-economics-teacher handwriting.<\/p>\n \u201cMark gets three hundred acres now,\u201d she said. \u201cToday. Deeded to him. The north quarter and the east eighty and the forty by the creek. For the nineteen years. For everything Dale wrote down.\u201d<\/p>\n I started to say something. She held up her hand.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other three hundred,\u201d she said, \u201cMark buys from me. On contract. At a fair price. Over twenty years. I live on the payments.\u201d<\/p>\n She looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when I die,\u201d she said, \u201cwhatever\u2019s left on the contract goes to Brad and Kyle. Along with the house in Sheldon I still own. And my teacher\u2019s pension. And my life insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not fair to you,\u201d I said. \u201cGiving me three hundred acres.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a gift,\u201d Elaine said. \u201cIt\u2019s back pay. Dale wrote it down. Every page.\u201d<\/p>\n She tapped the stack of field books.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not giving you anything you didn\u2019t earn,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m just finally paying you what he owed you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the other three hundred?\u201d Harold asked. \u201cWhy not give him that too?\u201d<\/p>\n Elaine looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause Mark wouldn\u2019t want it,\u201d she said. \u201cWould you, Mark?\u201d<\/p>\n I thought about it.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI want to buy it. I want to earn it. The way Dad did.\u201d<\/p>\n Elaine smiled. A real smile. The first one I\u2019d seen from her in months.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what I thought,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re just like him.\u201d<\/p>\n Brad called three days later.<\/p>\n He was angry. Elaine put him on speaker in the farmhouse kitchen so I could hear.<\/p>\n \u201cMom, what are you doing?\u201d he said. \u201cThat land is worth four million dollars. You\u2019re giving half of it away to some hired hand?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not a hired hand,\u201d Elaine said. \u201cHe\u2019s Dale\u2019s son.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not your son,\u201d Brad said.<\/p>\n Elaine was quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n \u201cBrad,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen was the last time you came home?\u201d<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n \u201cI called you,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen the beans were going down. I called you and asked for help. You said you couldn\u2019t get off work. You said I should hire somebody. You said that\u2019s what money\u2019s for.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMom\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMark didn\u2019t say that,\u201d Elaine said. \u201cMark walked away from that farm because I gave it to you over roast beef. And then he came back. With his neighbor. And three more neighbors. And the pastor. And they saved what they could.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll still get something,\u201d Elaine said. \u201cThe house in Sheldon. My pension. My insurance. And whatever\u2019s left on Mark\u2019s contract when I\u2019m gone.\u201d<\/p>\n She took off her reading glasses.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re not getting land you\u2019ve never walked,\u201d she said. \u201cLand you\u2019ve never planted. Land you\u2019d sell to the first investor from Des Moines who made you an offer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you know I\u2019d sell it?\u201d Brad said.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause you asked what it was worth per acre at Dale\u2019s funeral,\u201d Elaine said. \u201cOver ham sandwiches.\u201d<\/p>\n Brad hung up.<\/p>\n Elaine sat at the kitchen table for a long time after that, looking at the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Elaine,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n She shook her head.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t be,\u201d she said. \u201cI should have known. I just didn\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n Kyle called a week later.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t yell. He was quiet. Elaine told me about it afterward.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said he was sorry,\u201d she told me. \u201cFor not calling back. He said he didn\u2019t know what to say. He said he\u2019d been ashamed for a long time about not coming home.\u201d<\/p>\n She smiled a little.<\/p>\n \u201cHe asked if he could come in the spring,\u201d she said. \u201cFor planting. He said he wanted to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s October again now. One year later.<\/p>\n We\u2019re running beans on the west side. The weather has been perfect. Dry, sunny, a little wind. The yield monitor is reading fifty-eight on the high ground.<\/p>\n Kyle came in April for planting. He stayed two weeks. He\u2019s thirty-two, an accountant in Phoenix, pale and soft-handed and terrified of the tractor.<\/p>\n By the end of the first week, he could run the planter. By the end of the second, he\u2019d stopped wearing sunglasses in the field.<\/p>\n He came back for harvest. He\u2019s in the grain cart right now, running alongside me. Deb\u2019s teaching him. She says he\u2019s slow, but he listens.<\/p>\n Arlen got his other knee replaced in March. He walks better now. He still can\u2019t run a combine for more than a few hours at a time.<\/p>\n So we have an arrangement.<\/p>\n I run his corn every fall. He pays me twenty-four an hour. And next year, when he turns seventy, I\u2019ll start renting his ground. All eight hundred acres. He says he\u2019d rather see it farmed by somebody who knows the fence line than sold to some outfit from Sioux Falls.<\/p>\n \u201cBesides,\u201d he said, \u201cMarcy won\u2019t let me leave you out of the will now.\u201d<\/p>\n I thought he was joking. I\u2019m still not sure.<\/p>\n Last night was harvest supper.<\/p>\n Elaine made it the way she always does. Roast beef and mashed potatoes. Green beans with bacon. Dinner rolls from scratch. Apple crisp with ice cream.<\/p>\n She set the long table in the farmhouse dining room. Ten places this year.<\/p>\n Ron and Patty. Deb. Tom and Linda Visser. Kyle. Arlen and Marcy, who\u2019d never once eaten at our table in forty years of sharing a fence line.<\/p>\n And me.<\/p>\n Elaine had set my plate at the end of the table. By the window.<\/p>\n I looked out. The combine sat right outside, the last pink light on the cab glass.<\/p>\n From that chair, I could see the north quarter. My north quarter. The beans were coming out. Gold and dry and rattling in the pods.<\/p>\n We were halfway through supper when Elaine stood up.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t make a speech. She\u2019s not that kind of woman. She just reached into the pocket of her apron.<\/p>\n She took out a set of keys.<\/p>\n The combine key on a ring with a little brass tag. The key to the machine shed. The key to the fuel tank. The key to the grain truck.<\/p>\n She walked around the end of the table.<\/p>\n She set them down beside my plate. Right next to my roast beef.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are yours, Mark,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her voice was shaking just a little.<\/p>\n \u201cSo is the combine,\u201d she said. \u201cYour dad would have wanted you to have it.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked at the keys.<\/p>\n Then I looked at her. This small, neat woman with silver hair and reading glasses on a beaded chain. Who\u2019d walked a mile across a cornfield in my father\u2019s coat. Who\u2019d read nineteen years of his handwriting and finally understood what he\u2019d never said out loud.<\/p>\n \u201cElaine,\u201d I said. \u201cSit down. Finish your supper.\u201d<\/p>\n She laughed. Everybody laughed. Ron laughed so hard he had to take off his seed cap and wipe his eyes.<\/p>\n She sat down.<\/p>\n After supper, after the dishes, after the crew had gone home, I found Elaine in the machine shed.<\/p>\n She was standing in front of the shelf where Dad kept his old field books. The shoebox was there. Nineteen notebooks. She\u2019d put them back in order.<\/p>\n Beside it was a new notebook. Green cover. The kind you buy at the farm supply store for a dollar.<\/p>\n She\u2019d bought it for me in January.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should start your own,\u201d she said. \u201cWrite things down. Like he did.\u201d<\/p>\n I picked it up. I opened the cover.<\/p>\n On the inside, in her neat home-economics handwriting, she\u2019d already written something.<\/p>\n For Mark. Write down what you grow.<\/em><\/p>\n And this time, say it out loud too.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2014 Elaine<\/em><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n So I did the thing my father never did.<\/p>\n I hugged her.<\/p>\n She froze for a second. Then she hugged me back. Hard. Like she\u2019d been waiting fourteen years.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor what?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n I thought about it.<\/p>\n About the keys by her plate. About ten days of rain. About Marcy\u2019s chair by the window. About a mile of stubble and a coat that was too big for her.<\/p>\n \u201cFor walking out to the end of the row,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n Tonight, before bed, I sat at my kitchen table in the little house on the east eighty.<\/p>\n I opened my new green notebook. I took out a carpenter\u2019s pencil. I pressed hard into the page, the way Dad used to.<\/p>\n OCT 14 \u2014 BEANS ON WEST SIDE. 58 BU HIGH GROUND.<\/em><\/p>\n OCT 14 \u2014 HARVEST SUPPER. ELAINE MADE ROAST BEEF.<\/em><\/p>\n OCT 14 \u2014 TOLD ELAINE THANK YOU. OUT LOUD.<\/em><\/p>\n Then I closed the notebook and turned off the light.<\/p>\n Out the window, a mile to the west, I could see the farmhouse porch light still on.<\/p>\n She leaves it on for me now. Every night during harvest.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think she knows I can see it from here.<\/p>\n Someday, I\u2019ll tell her.<\/p>\n Out loud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the end of the row, about two hundred yards ahead, where Arlen\u2019s corn met the fence line, a small figure stood in the stubble. Silver hair. A barn coat … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21,22,1,5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aita","category-daily-article","category-reddit-stories","category-story","category-story-daily","category-viral-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8074,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8073\/revisions\/8074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Part Twelve: What Elaine Said<\/h3>\n
Part Thirteen: The Beans<\/h3>\n
Part Fourteen: Two Days<\/h3>\n
Part Fifteen: Harold Bauer\u2019s Office<\/h3>\n
Part Sixteen: Phoenix<\/h3>\n
Part Seventeen: Next October<\/h3>\n