Dad knew we hadn\u2019t spoken properly since Mom\u2019s funeral fourteen years ago, when Dennis left for Lincoln and never really came back. He wrote that if he gave me the farm, Dennis would never have a reason to come home. But if he gave Dennis the land, sooner or later the land would bring him to my door, the way it brought every Larsen home. Dad was right, and it had only taken one bad crop.<\/p>\n
The letter ended with instructions. Once Dennis asked for help, he was to deed me half of the farm, and the rent from the other half would pay me back for twenty-five years of work Dad never put on paper. Mr. Hollis had already drawn up the paperwork. And the feed truck, he wrote, was for the day we planted together. \u201cCheck the glove box,\u201d the last line said. \u201cYou\u2019ll need what\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the glove box was Dad\u2019s old pocket notebook. Every field, every soil test, every drainage tile he had ever laid, mapped in pencil over forty years. Dennis laughed and cried at the same time. We were in the fields by sunrise. I replanted the bare sections, fixed the pivot, and Arlo lent us his sprayer. Dennis drove the feed truck. Arlo leaned on the fence and said Dad would be proud of those rows. By September, we had saved most of the crop.<\/p>\n
Dennis signed the deed that fall, and he still comes home every other weekend to drive a tractor badly. Marcy says he\u2019s getting better. I don\u2019t. He brings his grandkids out to ride in the feed truck. Dad\u2019s gloves stay on the dashboard, exactly where he left them. Arne\u2019s list… no list here, just Dad\u2019s notebook in the glove box. And every spring, Dennis and I plant the first row together, slow and straight, the way Dad always wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dad knew we hadn\u2019t spoken properly since Mom\u2019s funeral fourteen years ago, when Dennis left for Lincoln and never really came back. He wrote that if he… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n