“Well.”
That single word sounded disappointed.
He had apparently hoped recklessness would be easier to diagnose.
Then he looked down at the planted row.
“You’ll get weeds.”
“I have a plan.”
“Birds.”
“I have a plan.”
“Wind.”
She smiled faintly.
“I have prayer.”
One of the neighbors laughed.
The Old Farmer almost did too.
Then his face hardened again.
“You think farming is a science project?”
The Farm Girl looked toward him.
“No.”
“Because your father understood something young people forget.”
“What?”
“A farm doesn’t care how clever you are.”
The words stung.
Not because they were entirely wrong.
Because he used her father as a weapon again.
She closed the tractor door.
“My father also said a farm doesn’t care how old you are.”
The Old Farmer stared.
The neighbor beside him coughed to hide a smile.
The Farm Girl continued planting.
By sunset, all forty acres were done.
Then came waiting.
Spring rain was uneven.
Enough for emergence.
Not enough for comfort.
Seven days after planting, the first seedlings appeared.
Small.
Green.
Fragile-looking.
The Farm Girl walked every row.
Some gaps.
Not many.
She counted.
Calculated stand.
Acceptable.
Her mother came with her one evening.
The Older Woman still lived in the farmhouse, though the farm had legally passed mostly to her daughter.
She had survived cancer.
Her husband had not.
That injustice had made her quieter.
Not bitter.
Just careful with joy.
She looked at the sunflower seedlings.
“You sure your father wrote about these?”
The Farm Girl smiled.
“You think I invented the ledger?”
“No.”
Her mother bent carefully.
Her knees hurt.
“He never told me.”
“He probably didn’t want you to know he wasted seed on experiments.”
The Older Woman laughed softly.
“That sounds like him.”
They walked.
After a while, her mother said, “You don’t have to prove him right.”
The Farm Girl stopped.
“What?”
“Your father.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
The Farm Girl looked toward the seedlings.
Her mother continued.
“You’ve been carrying that ledger like scripture.”
“It has records.”
“I know.”
“Twenty-eight years of records.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“So your father could be wrong.”
The Farm Girl frowned.
Her mother touched her arm.
“Don’t turn loving him into obeying him.”
The words hurt.
Because they were true enough to be dangerous.
The Farm Girl looked across forty acres she had planted partly because of a dead man’s handwriting.
“What if this was stupid?”
Her mother smiled.
“Then it was your stupid decision.”
That helped more than reassurance would have.
Rain stopped in June.
Not entirely.
Enough.
A shower here.
Half an inch there.
But the heat increased.
Soybeans on neighboring ground began showing stress by midday.
Corn leaves rolled.
The sunflowers did something else.
They slowed.