“Uncle Darrell would have had my hide if he saw you lifting those bags alone,” Brody said. Before I could answer, he took the seed bag out of my arms, tore it open, and poured it into the planter box. Then he grabbed another. By the time the boxes were full, Kenzie was standing in the tractor cab grinning under her father’s cap.

Brody wiped his hands on his jeans and looked back across the road at his father. “I didn’t just come to help, Aunt Shannon,” he said quietly. “The bank called Dad again last night. They’re giving him and Uncle Rusty until July, or they’ll take the whole place. Dad’s too proud to ask.” He swallowed hard. “But you’re the only one who ever understood those books.”

I already knew some of it. I had seen the warning letters in January. For twenty-two years, I had kept the farm’s accounts, and Darrell had managed the planting decisions. Without either of us, the brothers had borrowed against the land to pay my buyout without restructuring anything. They had expected the banker to wait. He wasn’t going to. That was why they’d wanted me gone so quickly. Gene’s son had seen it before he had.

That evening, Gene crossed the road himself, cap in his hands. Brody stood beside his father the whole time. Gene apologized for the luncheon, for the timing, and for never asking how Kenzie and I were holding up. Then he asked for help. I told him I would sit down with the banker and fix their books, on one condition. He would treat me as a partner again, not a widow to be managed.

It took three long meetings at the bank, but I restructured their loan and cut their seed costs by joining their orders with mine. The bank extended their terms through the next harvest. In exchange, the brothers agreed that the old farmhouse would go to Kenzie when she turned twenty-one. Brody chose to rent a room in town instead. Rusty shook my hand on it. He didn’t say much, but he meant it.

Brody worked my ninety-five acres all that summer, and he still helps me every spring. In October, the corn on both sides of the gravel road came in heavy and gold. Gene and Rusty waved from their tractor. I waved back. Kenzie rode in the combine beside me, wearing Darrell’s cap, the brim still too big. When we finished the last row, she looked across the road and said, “Dad would like this.” It felt like home again.