My name is Eleanor Grace Whitmore. I’m 68 years old, and for nearly five decades, I was a wife, a mother, and the quiet heart of Hazelbrook Orchards a small, organic apple farm nestled in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. My hands, though now stiff with arthritis, still remember every step of turning dough into sourdough loaves and pruning trees at dawn with Richard, my husband.
Three weeks ago, I buried him. Richard and I had been married since 1981. We built everything together this orchard, this home, this family.
And yet, the morning after his funeral, I realized that I might not have built what I thought I had. Or maybe it just wasn’t enough to hold on to my children. Richard died of pancreatic cancer.
Fourteen months of watching a man of the earth waste away, his strength stolen bit by bit. He didn’t want the kids to know. Let them live their lives a little longer without this shadow, he had whispered to me one night, his voice thick with morphine.
And because I loved him, I agreed. But in truth, I already knew. Our children Darren and Samantha had grown distant long before the diagnosis.
Darren, the eldest, had carved out a fast-paced career in Boston’s financial world and hadn’t been home for more than a handful of weekends in over a decade. Samantha, on the other hand, floated from one failed wellness business to another, always funded by Richard’s savings and always in need of just one more loan. I had hoped that grief would bring them back to the core of who we were.
That they would remember the orchard. The family dinners. The love that built this house.
But when they arrived for the funeral, I didn’t see children mourning their father. I saw professionals calculating an estate. The night after the funeral, I sat alone in the kitchen, staring at the worn wood of our dining table.
I told them we could sort through Richard’s things together the next day. It was a small gesture. A mother’s way of making space for memory.
But they had other plans. The next morning, sunlight spilled through the lace curtains Richard and I had picked out together thirty years ago. I made coffee the simple kind Richard liked, not the imported blend Darren had brought from Boston and waited at the kitchen table.
They came downstairs, dressed sharply. Darren in a blazer he didn’t bother to remove Samantha in a silk blouse and perfectly curled hair. They looked like they were heading to a business meeting, not sitting down to remember their father.
Mom, Darren began, placing his coffee mug down with that same practice precision I’d seen in his father. We’ve been talking. Samantha glanced at him, then at me.
We think it’s time to start settling things. The estate. The business.
The house. I blinked, unsure I’d heard right. Settling.
It’s practical, Darren said. You can’t run the orchard alone. And the house it’s big mom.
Too much for someone your age. My age? The words sat heavy in the room. I had pruned those trees beside Richard through blizzards and heat waves.
I had handled payroll when we couldn’t afford an assistant, baked pies for fundraisers, driven tractors, delivered crates to food banks. We want you to be comfortable, Samantha added, her voice smooth like a sales pitch. There’s a wonderful retirement community two hours south.
Sunnyvale Estates. Activities, friends your age. I stood to clear the breakfast plates, needing motion to hide my shushing hands.
Then Darren pulled out a folder. Dad spoke to me about this last year, he said, sliding a set of documents toward me, he wanted Melissa and me to take over. I looked at the paper.
It was printed on Darren’s corporate letterhead. Richard’s signature steady, too perfect looked off. He hadn’t written that clearly in months, not since the morphing.