“You planted beans this year.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you hated beans.”
“I never hated beans.”
“You acted like it.”
“I hated people telling me they were the only intelligent choice.”
He smiled.
“Fair.”
She handed him a jar of sunflower seeds.
He looked at it.
“What’s this?”
“Snack.”
“I have teeth problems.”
“Then give them to your grandchildren.”
He set the jar beside him.
“Remember the day I waved the county report at you?”
She laughed.
“You didn’t wave a county report.”
“What?”
“That happened later.”
He frowned.
“My memory improved it.”
“You kicked a fence post.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you were angry.”
“At you?”
“Probably at change.”
He considered.
“That sounds profound.”
“It sounds generous.”
They both laughed.
After a while he said, “I was hard on you.”
“Yes.”
“I thought it would protect you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It protected you.”
He looked at her.
The Farm Girl continued.
“If I failed, you could say you warned me.”
The Old Farmer stared toward sunset.
“If you succeeded, I had to rethink things.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“You were irritating.”
“So were you.”
“Still are.”
“Likewise.”
The Old Farmer smiled.
Then his expression softened.
“I’m glad you planted them.”
The Farm Girl looked toward the west field.
“So am I.”
He died the next winter.
At the funeral, his oldest son gave the Farm Girl a box.
Inside were notebooks.
The Old Farmer’s.
She opened the first.
Weather.
Planting.
Yield.
Records.
Very familiar.
Near the end of one notebook, she found an entry written the year of her sunflower record.
WHITFIELD GIRL IS GOING TO RUIN SOUTH FORTY.
SMART KID, BUT TOO PROUD.
Two pages later:
SUNFLOWERS LOOK BETTER THAN I EXPECTED.
DO NOT TELL HER.
Another:
STORM DAMAGE LESS THAN I THOUGHT.
SHE COUNTS EVERYTHING.
ANNOYING.
Then:
TEST STRIP IS RIDICULOUS.
MIGHT BREAK RECORD.
I MAY HAVE TO APOLOGIZE.
HATE THIS.
The Farm Girl laughed in the funeral parking lot.
People stared.
She did not care.
The final entry was written years later.
SHE TAUGHT ME SOMETHING HER FATHER TRIED TO TEACH ME FIRST.
A FIELD IS NOT A TRADITION.
IT IS A QUESTION ASKED AGAIN EVERY SPRING.
The Farm Girl closed the notebook.
That sentence went into her own ledger.
Not as scripture.
As conversation.
By sixty, the Farm Girl still operated Whitfield Farms, though younger relatives handled much of the physical work.
The south forty had grown sunflowers seven times since the record year.
Soybeans twelve.
Wheat.
Sorghum.
Cover crops.