But it became possible to imagine another day.
Aunt June became my legal guardian after Mom died.
She was my mother's older sister, forty-two when the county officials came to the farm, and worked as a nurse at the Blackwater Hollow Community Clinic.
She lived with us in the farmhouse.
She managed the household bills, legal documents, and decisions Grandpa didn't want me worrying about.
She also made sure I attended school, completed homework, and had friends outside the farm.
That last part was harder than she expected.
Most boys my age played video games or sports after school.
I liked those things too.
But I also liked water measurements, fish biology, electrical diagrams, and listening to Grandpa explain the strange history of the county's emergency radio network.
A few classmates thought that was interesting.
Others thought it made me weird.
One boy called me Trout Professor for an entire semester.
I pretended not to care.
But I did.
Then Grandpa told me about the first time somebody laughed at his inventions.
He was fifteen.
He'd built a crude waterwheel from salvaged parts.
It barely produced enough mechanical power to accomplish the task he'd intended.
His uncle laughed.
Called it a waste of time.
Told him he'd be better off fixing fences.
Grandpa didn't argue.
He improved it.
Then built another.
Years later, he designed a small water-powered system to help supply electricity to an outbuilding on the farm.
He smiled when he told the story.
“People are allowed to laugh, Owen.”
I looked toward him.
“What if they're wrong?”
He shrugged.
“Then the thing you build will answer them.”
For years, that was how I thought about the farm.
Not as a business I expected to make me rich.
Not as a collection of ancient machines.
But as the place where Grandpa taught me to understand the world.
He also taught me that being right didn't excuse treating other people badly.
When I got angry at classmates, he'd listen.
Then ask what I intended to do.
If I said I wanted to humiliate them, he'd shake his head.
“That's not how you prove you're worth listening to.”
I'd complain.
He'd smile.
“Learn something they don't know. Then use it to help somebody.”
I thought that sounded unfair.
Grandpa laughed.
“Most good advice does when you're thirteen.”
By the autumn before he died, Grandpa had become more tired.
He still walked around the ponds.
Still inspected the equipment with trained helpers.
And still sat beside me at the kitchen table reviewing the farm records.