The Harvest of Grace (37 page)

“Maybe when I sent the letter,” he admitted. “But not now.”

“I thought you were honest with me. You never once mentioned having written my sister. Every moment between us was a lie!” She stormed off. “Stay away from me!”

Aaron watched her slowly disappear past the dip of the rolling fields. Questions ran wild inside him, and he couldn’t find one solid answer he could trust.

He made his way to the barn. His thoughts jabbed him mercilessly as he readied the stalls. Was she right? Had he lied to her this whole time? Initially, he hoped Beckie would visit, the two would make up, and Sylvi would want to go home. But what had he been hoping for since falling in love with her? And did it matter? She wanted nothing else to do with him.

Half of the cows were milked before Trevor showed up.

“I took Sylvia’s sister home.”

“I figured as much.”

“They both seemed really upset.” Trevor released a set of milkers from a cow and grabbed the bucket. “Is there anything I can do?”

Aaron shook his head. He had no idea what he could do himself. He thought of Trevor on the ladder inside that apartment building and the toolbox falling on that little boy’s head. The toolbox had just fallen on Aaron. Or maybe he’d shoved it onto Sylvia. Either way, there was no undoing what had been done.

Thirty-Five

Aaron lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Darkness and heat clung to the early morning. Hours from now Sylvi would walk through the blackness to the milking parlor, and he’d meet her there, hoping she’d forgive him.

He’d spent the night lying here, trying to sort through his motivations. Sure, at the time he’d wanted Sylvi to go away. He’d come home with a goal, and she stood in his way. He had expected her and her sister to argue, but he’d banked on Sylvi’s more gentle nature taking over and enabling the two to settle their differences. She’d then pack her bags and be on her merry way, leaving him free to convince his parents to sell the farm.

He’d never once thought the letter might rip their lives apart.

He sat up, putting his feet on the floor and his head in his hands. The image of Sylvi’s brokenness brought another round of fresh pain.

He caught a glimpse of an insight and latched onto it.

He’d broken an unspoken rule—one person did not reach into another person’s life and make decisions for her … or him. It seemed this was a lesson he should have learned long ago.

As his thoughts followed that trail, he understood something else. It wasn’t his place to pry his parents’ grip free of this farm. He wasn’t wrong in showing them options for a different life or in sacrificing his time to help them. But his way was overzealous.

He was doing for them what he wished they’d done for him—see the problem and get involved. But they were mature adults with the right to hang on to this black hole until they or the bank said otherwise.

He’d offered them a good, sound plan to move to Owl’s Perch. It made sense for him and his parents to stay together since he was their only surviving child. Since Daed wasn’t easy to get along with, asking both parents to move into the living quarters above the appliance store and his Daed to help run the shop was a huge sacrifice. But …

He’d learned in rehab that a spouse, friend, or parent can’t make someone want to get clean. And he couldn’t make his parents want to leave this place. He’d banked on having more influence over his parents than he really had. It was now mid-August, and his Daed trusted him a little more but not enough. He hadn’t expected his Daed to be grateful for what he was trying to do, but he’d thought his Daed would cooperate more by now.

After moving to his desk, Aaron lit a kerosene lantern and looked through the informational documents the EPA worker had left. He found the page titled “The Struggle to Make Small Farms Profitable.” Unfortunately, it all hinged on one thing—getting that boost Sylvi kept looking for. He took out a notebook and began writing down information.

By the time he heard his parents moving around downstairs, he’d come up with a couple of plans that might work. After putting each idea for a specific section of the farm into its own folder, he gathered his work, tucked his small notebook and pencil into his pants pocket, and went downstairs.

A sense of nostalgia tugged at him as he gazed at his parents in the kitchen, dimly lit by a kerosene lamp. His Daed stood at the counter with the percolator in front of him, making coffee. His mother kneaded a bowl of dough, probably preparing a batch of cinnamon buns. They had legitimate reasons to struggle with coping. Mamm had carried eight children to term, and only two had survived past the first few hours or days of life. They left Ohio under duress, and then they lost his sister in a horrific accident. But his sympathy for those terrible events and for Daed’s battle with arthritis didn’t offer any solutions. Answers for the future were what mattered, not heartbreak for the past.

He put his plans on the kitchen table. “We need to talk.”

His Daed lit the eye on the gas stove and set the percolator on it. “What’s that?”

“A new set of plans that I believe represent your best chance for making this farm both manageable and profitable.”

“Is it something we can do and afford?”

“You’ll need money and some restructuring to get it started. I should be able to get out some of the cash I put down on the appliance store—it was more than what was needed anyway. I’ll get back as much of it as I can.”

His mother moved toward him, eyes wide with hope. “Are you staying?”

“No.”

Sylvi didn’t want him here, and he’d done what he came to do—face his parents and give them his best until it was time for him to take over the store. Surely they would cosign the loan papers, even if they didn’t go with him, so that his agreement with Leo would be satisfied.

Anger shrouded his Daed’s face.

“Daed, you can’t do to Sylvi what you did to me. If you want to keep this farm, you have to be willing to do your share or hire full-time help for her.”

“You do more bellyaching than a girl.”

“This isn’t about me. I’m here on Sylvi’s behalf. You drew her in on promises, much as you did me when you wanted to move here from Ohio. You bought this place because you had a dream, but then you gave up and blamed me for every failure. You can’t do that to her.”

Daed grabbed a newspaper off the counter and threw it across the room. “How dare you—a strong, healthy man in your twenties—judge me! I’ve been through hard times you know nothing about.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But you need to decide whether you’re capable of pitching in to achieve your dream—or if you even want to. If you can’t or won’t, then free Sylvi before all this hard work breaks her.”

“You always think I’m not fair. Life isn’t fair. I’d think you’d know that by now.”

“You need to be honest with Sylvi. If you don’t want this place enough to pull your weight or hire the needed help, say so.”

“I do want this place! But I don’t have the money to hire help, and a man with back problems can’t work that milking barn twice a day every day.”

“The barn can be redesigned with a ramp for the cows so you don’t have to bend so much. And once the overdue bills are paid, you can start setting aside money to buy supplies.”

Daed wagged his finger. “I may not handle as much around here as you think I should, but I’ve never run out on this family. You abandoned us. After your sister died, milk prices plummeted, the cost of feed and veterinarian bills skyrocketed, and you left!”

“So did you. You crawled into your bed and became just as unavailable as I was when I went to rehab.”

“We moved here for you.”

“Hogwash.”

Daed had left Ohio because his own father had divided up his farm based on the number of grandchildren in each of his children’s households. Daed’s brothers ended up with hundreds of acres. Daed was left with only forty acres and the right to use the dairy barn.

For years his parents had carried the grief over their six lost babies. When Daadi Blank divided the land based on living grandchildren, it was as if he’d cursed them in front of all their relatives and friends. It was too much for them to handle, so they found this farm in Dry Lake and moved.

His Daed picked up the folders and flung them. “Why don’t you keep your money and your plans and just go? We don’t need your help. Sylvia and I were managing just fine without you.”

“No, Michael, you weren’t. Besides, he’s our only child.” Mamm turned to Aaron. “He grieved for you constantly, and I prayed day and night that you’d come home again. Please don’t leave now.”

“Don’t beg him. He made up his mind years ago.” Daed jerked a chair away from the kitchen table and sat, but his harsh words and movements didn’t hide the pain in his eyes. “You want to go, go.”

Aaron took the seat beside his father. “Daed, I know you have hurts, really deep ones. But you shouldn’t have dumped your agony and garbage on me. We’ve become just like you and your dad—only worse. Well, I’m tired of making excuses for you, and I’m finished trying to fix your problems.”

His Daed stared at him, eyes filling with tears. “Then leave.”

Spiteful words coursed through Aaron until he thought they’d explode from him. He marched out the back door, slamming it behind him.

Black skies hovered, and the cows mooed, ready to be let into the barn and milked. He stomped across the wet fields. He’d always believed his Daed loved him, but now he wasn’t so sure. Pain throbbed inside his chest. He’d taxed his parents for years, lied to them, and embarrassed them in front of the community. But Daed’s hardness wasn’t rooted in Aaron’s behavior. His father didn’t like him, plain and simple.

He wished he could talk to Sylvi, but she wanted nothing to do with him right now and for good reason.

Even with the hostility between his Daed and him, he didn’t regret coming home. He’d do it all again a hundred times over for the chance to get to know Sylvi. And to let his Mamm know he loved her and was sorry for bailing on them the way he had.

Hurt swirled around inside him, picking up other hurts as it went. At least now he understood a little better why he’d felt the need to escape. And he wanted that escape right now. A six-pack would take the edge off. Two would do a better job. What else could he do? There were no answers, not to his and Sylvi’s relationship, not to his and his parents’. He walked the fence line, using the moonlight to avoid the huge tractor ruts wherever he could.

Everybody used something to escape, right? His Daed crawled into bed for weeks at a time. Sylvi left home and worked herself into exhaustion. What was so wrong with his way?

The mud and earth shifted under him. A cracking noise rumbled, and suddenly the lower half of his body dangled in a hole. He tried to dig his fingers into the ground, but the mud came loose. He grabbed onto wet grass, trying to find something that would keep the rest of his body from being pulled into the hole.

He slid farther. “No. God, hear me, please!”

The grass yanked out by its roots, and Aaron plummeted. Everything around him went pitch black.

Sylvia woke with her eyes burning, her body aching, and the same pressing question that had kept her up most of the night—what should she do now? Darkness filled the room, and she wished she could hide in it forever. It didn’t matter that she’d cried herself to sleep. Nothing had changed. She owed God and her sister a price she could never pay.

Thoughts of Aaron crowded her mind, confusing her even more. She pushed herself upright, determined not to think about him. She didn’t know who’d handled the milking last night, but she needed to get to the barn this morning. Heaviness pressed down, as if she were trying to carry a newborn calf on her shoulders.

Without putting a match to a lantern, she slid into her clothes and made her way along the shadowy path. Light shone from inside the barn. If Aaron was there, she’d leave.

She stepped inside. The stalls were already bedded, feed sat in the troughs, and the doors were open to let the cows enter.

Trevor looked up. “Morning.”

“Is it just you today?”

“Yeah. Aaron had me come in early.”

Good. At least she wouldn’t have to see him.