She would not cry.
Absolutely not.
Lucas laughed beside her.
“You’re crying.”
“I hate this family.”
After the ceremony, Della walked toward the original channel.
Sunset reflected in the water.
Tilapia moved below.
Not the same fish.
Hundreds of generations removed.
Still swimming through the same idea.
Walter approached slowly.
He was eighty.
“Remember that morning?”
“Yes.”
“You were mad.”
“I’m still mad.”
“You looked better back then.”
“Careful.”
He laughed.
Della looked at him.
“You really thought I was crazy?”
“Yes.”
“That quickly?”
“You poured fish into an irrigation ditch.”
“Fair.”
Walter leaned on the fence.
“You know what shut me up?”
“The yield.”
“No.”
Della raised an eyebrow.
“The first time I stopped laughing was July.”
“Why?”
“I came by at six one morning.”
Della remembered none of this.
“You were cleaning a screen.”
“So?”
“You looked exhausted.”
“Still not seeing the lesson.”
Walter smiled.
“You weren’t performing.”
Della became quiet.
“I thought the fish were some stunt.”
“For who?”
“Yourself maybe.”
He shrugged.
“Something young people do because they want to prove old people wrong.”
Della smiled.
“Sometimes.”
“But that morning, nobody was watching.”
Walter pointed toward the ditch.
“You were waist-deep cleaning that disgusting thing before sunrise.”
He looked at her.
“That was when I thought maybe you knew something I didn’t.”
Della stared at the water.
“That would’ve been useful to mention twenty years ago.”
“Would’ve damaged my reputation.”
She laughed.
They stood quietly.
Walter said:
“Rayburn would hate how famous the fish became.”
“He’d claim they copied him.”
“Definitely.”
Darkness came.
People left.
Della remained.
Later, Tommy joined her.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You look sad.”
“Old.”
“You’re forty-four.”
“Ancient.”
Tommy sat beside the ditch.
“Do you want me to take over someday?”
Della looked at her.
“That is not a question you ask me.”
“Why?”
“Because if I say yes, you hear obligation.”
“If you say no?”
“You hear rejection.”
Tommy frowned.
“So?”
“You decide.”
“But you want something.”
“Of course.”
“What?”
Della looked across the fields.
“I want you to have a choice.”
Tommy was quiet.
“That’s it?”
“That’s enormous.”
Della remembered her father.
He had never asked her to inherit.
When cancer became terminal, he called her into the workshop.
“You don’t owe this place your life.”
She became angry.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Sell if you need.”
“Dad.”
“Promise.”
She refused.
He grabbed her hand.
“Land can become a cage if dead people tell living people what to do with it.”
Della cried.