Part 3
The copied key appeared on Kate’s ring the following Saturday.
She also brought six colored fence reels, a package of permanent markers, and a spreadsheet projecting feed costs by month. Eleanor disliked the spreadsheet on sight. She could not dispute a single number in it.
They began with seven piglets in the upper cell. Notch refused to enter until Kate tapped the blue feed bucket against his nose. Once through, he worked steadily along the open strip between the protected trunks, lifting shallow plugs of sod and hunting grubs.
Thirty-six hours later, Eleanor moved the group out.
That first rotation left the ground rough but not ruined. The tree guards remained upright. No roots showed. Kate recorded the date, rainfall, and soil condition while Eleanor complained that Tom’s ledger had managed for decades without colored columns.
“Tom also kept receipts in order,” Kate said.
“He had weaknesses.”
“Not in alphabetical filing.”
The routine settled around them. Before work, Eleanor checked water, feed, fences, and forty-two bodies. Afterward, she checked soil, guards, and the bark above every protected root flare.
Kate came on Wednesdays after the office closed and every Saturday morning. They argued about feed prices, fence placement, and whether a forecast of showers counted as rain. They also began drinking coffee together on the shed step without always filling the silence.
At the end of June, the one-month calendar ran out.
Kate stood beside the shed door with an uncapped marker and drew the July grid beneath it.
“Month’s up,” Eleanor said.
“I know.”
Kate hung the calendar back on its nail. She did not return the key.
The piglets’ rough coats smoothed. Their shoulders widened, and their legs lost the trembling uncertainty they had carried off the trailer. Dr. Haskell’s follow-up tests showed that the parasite treatment had worked.
The orchard changed more slowly.
Dana’s soil report found the ground too acidic and short on potassium. Eleanor applied only what the report recommended. She and Kate spent two weekends cutting back the cedars that shaded the eastern row and pulling honeysuckle from around the trunks.
In open sections the pigs cleared, Kate seeded a low orchard mix to hold the slope. Tom’s notes guided them, but no longer settled arguments by themselves.
In July, Notch uncovered another aluminum tag. This one read YORK.
Kate cleaned it with the hem of her shirt. “Dad would’ve put this in a jar and forgotten which tree it came from.”
“He would have labeled the jar.”
“He would have meant to label it.”
Eleanor laughed before she could stop herself. The sound startled both of them.
Later that afternoon, Dana found short lengths of new growth on nine of the living trees. It did not prove the orchard would bear again, but it meant those trees still had reserves.
Eleanor entered nine in the ledger.
Kate drew a line beneath the number. “Don’t borrow next spring from them yet.”
“I wrote down what we saw.”
“I know how you look at numbers.”
Eleanor closed the book. “So do I.”
By August, the feed bill was nearly twice what it had been in June. Growing pigs did not remain an auction bargain. The pasture cooperative Cal had contacted agreed to inspect them in October, but its buyer made no promises.
The bank wanted a new appraisal before discussing an extension. The appraiser was scheduled for the last Friday of August.
Three days before the visit, thunderstorms settled over Briar County. Water ran from the barn roof in sheets and filled the wheel ruts along the lane. Eleanor kept all six groups off the orchard, as the plan required.
Thursday afternoon brought sun. The surface of the lower cell dried to a dull brown, though moisture still shone when Eleanor pushed her boot through the crust.
That section was waist-high in grass. From the farmhouse porch, it made the orchard look abandoned.
Kate called at five.
“Leave them off,” she said. “The clay underneath is still wet.”
“The appraiser comes tomorrow.”
“He isn’t valuing the mowing.”
“He’s valuing whether this can function as an orchard.”
“Then show him the rotation records.”
Eleanor looked down the hill. The living trees were almost hidden at their bases. “Seven pigs for a few hours won’t hurt it.”
“Wait until Saturday. I’ll bring the trimmer.”
After the call, Eleanor stood beside the charger with the gate handle in her hand. She could hear Tom warning that wet ground lied from the top down. She could also see the appraiser writing nonproductive acreage beside the south slope.
She released fourteen pigs into the lower cell.
They spread through the grass at first. By dusk, they had opened only shallow patches, and Eleanor convinced herself she had judged correctly. She left them overnight to finish.
Rain began again after midnight.
At dawn, the lower cell was churned black. The pigs had crowded beneath the split tree to escape the weather, digging beyond the protected trunk into the soft soil. Water followed the furrows downhill.
Eleanor moved them out before breakfast. She covered the exposed ground with straw and reset two leaning guards. She intended to call Kate after the appraisal.
Kate arrived early.
Her car stopped beside the lower gate. She stepped out, looked once at the mud on the pigs’ legs, and walked directly down the slope.
Eleanor followed.
“You put fourteen in here.”
“It looked firm yesterday.”
“You tested it.”
“The top had dried.”
Kate pulled aside the straw. Several feeder roots lay exposed, and one had been torn. The split tree’s lower side had settled less than an inch, but enough for a clean gap to show around one edge of the trunk.
“Did you call Dana?” Kate asked.
“Not yet.”
“Were you going to?”
“After I fixed what I could.”
Kate stood and wiped her hands on her jeans. “You called me yesterday so you could say you’d asked. You’d already decided.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“No. Fair would have been telling me before I found the tracks.”
The appraiser’s truck appeared at the lane.
He spent less than twenty minutes in the orchard. The trees had no current commercial yield, and he could assign no income value to a possible future crop. The disturbed lower slope did not help, though he noted that the erosion appeared repairable.
At the farmhouse, he photographed the buildings and the blue Ford tractor parked beneath the equipment roof. Tom had bought it used before Kate was born. The left fender still carried the dent from the afternoon she learned to use the clutch and backed into a gatepost.
“Clean old machine,” the appraiser said. “That one has value.”
Eleanor looked away.
After he left, Kate placed the copied office key on the tractor’s hood.
“You want the farm sold,” Eleanor said.
“I want you to stop making every decision as if losing one more thing will kill you.”
“You moved away.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Eleanor wanted them back.
Kate had moved twenty-seven miles away, not across the country. She had driven Tom to cardiology appointments, reconciled the farm accounts during lunch breaks, and slept in a vinyl chair during his final week.
Her face emptied.
“I went home at night,” she said. “There’s a difference.”
Eleanor reached for the key, but Kate stepped back. “Call me when you’re ready to show me what happened before I have to find it.” She left the key on the faded blue hood and drove away…
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