“Yes.”
He crouched.
“Show me.”
David Walker was Daniel’s younger brother.
Thirty-eight.
Electrician.
He had grown up farming and escaped at nineteen, as he described it.
He helped Ruth whenever possible but refused to pretend he wanted the land himself.
Ethan showed him the modification.
David listened.
Then pointed.
“That edge will catch.”
Ethan frowned.
“Where?”
“Here.”
He was right.
They worked until midnight.
Neither mentioned Daniel until they finished.
Then David wiped grease from his hands.
“Your dad would've hated this.”
Ethan looked at him.
“The sunflowers?”
“No.”
He smiled.
“Being dead while you alter his planter.”
Ethan laughed.
Then stopped.
David looked away.
Sometimes grief arrived disguised as a joke and did not know how to leave.
Planting began May 28.
Ethan drove the tractor.
Ruth rode the first round with him.
Not because he needed supervision.
Because she did.
The planter dropped seed into Iowa soil one measured interval at a time.
Ethan watched the markers.
Straight.
Turn.
Straight again.
Field Seven slowly changed from brown earth into possibility.
By sunset, twelve acres were planted.
Next morning, eleven more.
The rest on the third day.
When Ethan lifted the planter after the final row, he stopped the tractor.
Ruth stood at the edge of the field.
She had brought water.
He climbed down.
“That’s it.”
She looked across the bare ground.
“It doesn’t look like much.”
“No.”
“Eighty-seven thousand plants?”
“Hopefully.”
Ruth stared.
“That's too many children.”
Ethan laughed.
She handed him water.
A truck slowed on the county road.
Walter Dean.
He honked.
Then leaned out.
“Bird food!”
Ethan raised the water jug like a toast.
Walter laughed and drove away.
Emergence came six days later.
Tiny green plants.
Two leaves.
Rows.
Ethan walked every one he could.
He counted stand gaps.
Marked weed pressure.
Checked insect damage.
His friends finished school and disappeared toward baseball fields, fishing ponds, and summer jobs.
Ethan farmed.
Not every hour.
His mother would not allow that.
She forced him to attend his friend Caleb’s birthday.
Ethan spent half the party calculating rainfall.
Caleb threw a hamburger bun at him.
“You’re becoming eighty.”
“Sorry.”
“You talk about plant populations.”
“Only when relevant.”
“It is never relevant.”
Ethan tried to be fourteen.
He swam in the creek.
Played baseball badly.
Rode his bicycle into town.
Bought a Coke.
Then returned home and checked sunflower leaves for beetles.
By June 21, the rows were obvious from the road.
By July 4, the plants reached Ethan’s waist.
And the jokes changed.
Not stopped.
Changed.
Before, men mocked the decision.
Now they mocked the appearance.
“Sure is pretty.”
“Maybe charge admission.”
“You could host weddings.”
“Sell postcards.”
Ethan smiled.
He had learned something.