At the same time, two major landscape customers delayed large compost orders because construction had slowed.
Neither problem would have destroyed Cedar Creek alone.
Together, they exposed something Maya already knew and had avoided saying aloud.
The company had grown too dependent on the system Noah built.
Not emotionally.
Financially.
Everyone celebrated diversification because Cedar Creek had vegetables, flowers, shell products, compost, consulting, and agricultural byproduct contracts.
But a surprising amount of revenue still depended on regional seafood volume.
The same industry that saved the farm decades earlier had become one of the farm’s largest concentrations of risk.
Maya leaned back.
The office smelled faintly of old paper and coffee.
Her grandfather’s desk had never been elegant.
Oak.
Heavy.
Scratched.
One corner bore a deep gouge where Noah once dropped a gearbox.
Sophie had tried to replace it.
Noah refused.
“I know where everything is.”
“That has nothing to do with the desk.”
“It does emotionally.”
Now the desk belonged to nobody.
Maya used it because the operations office needed a desk and because moving it felt unnecessarily dramatic.
She did not call it Grandpa’s desk.
Everybody else did.
A knock came at the door.
Maya glanced at the clock.
12:14 a.m.
“Who is it?”
“Someone with enough sense to know you’re still here.”
The door opened.
Her father, Daniel Carter, entered carrying two paper cups.
Daniel was Noah’s oldest son.
Fifty-nine years old now.
He had spent much of his life deliberately not becoming Noah.
He worked as a civil engineer for the state transportation department.
He lived twenty-five minutes away.
He knew farming but had never wanted the farm.
That had once worried Noah.
Then pleased him.
“A family business that requires family participation is just hereditary employment,” Noah said.
Daniel placed a cup in front of Maya.
“Tea.”
“I wanted coffee.”
“At midnight?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Maya looked at him.
“I am forty-one.”
“And I’m still taller.”
“That is not authority.”
“It’s enough for tea.”
She took the cup.
Daniel sat across from her.
“You saw Harbor’s revised volume.”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
Maya turned the laptop.
He read quietly.
Unlike Noah, Daniel did not react to numbers immediately.
He read them twice.
Then asked:
“What’s the worst assumption?”
“Seafood volume stays down through spring.”
“Landscape recovery slow.”
“Flower revenue normal.”
“Vegetable contracts normal.”
“Energy costs up four percent.”
“What if seafood recovers in February?”
“Then we’re fine.”
“What does fine mean?”
“We keep all planned capital spending and finish the new curing bay.”
Daniel frowned.
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We delay.”
“Staff?”
“Not yet.”
The last word bothered him.
He looked at Maya.
“How long have you known?”
“That this could happen?”
“Yes.”
“Years.”
“No.”
He nodded toward spreadsheet.
“This.”
She looked away.
“About three weeks.”
“Who knows?”
“Finance.”
“Board chair.”