The rage that rose in me then was something primal, something I hadn’t felt since I watched a fox try to steal into our chicken coop when the children were small. I’d chased it off with a broom and the kind of fury that comes from protecting what’s yours.
“He was lucid,” Brandon insisted. “He wanted us to have a fresh start with the business. There’s a developer interested in the land.”
“Developer for a luxury housing community,” Melissa explained, her eyes bright with the prospect of money. “They’ll pay seven million. Mom, we can all start fresh.”
Fresh—as if the life Nicholas and I had built was something stale, something to be discarded. As if the legacy of Canton Family Orchards, our sustainable farming practices, our refusal to sell to the big grocery chains that would squeeze our workers, our annual donation of ten percent of our crop to the local food banks, was nothing compared to the prospect of cookie-cutter homes for wealthy weekenders from Philadelphia.
“Your father would never sell this land for development,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “And I didn’t sign anything.”
“You don’t need to,” Brandon explained with practiced patience. “The business was in Dad’s name. The house, too. Pennsylvania isn’t a community property state.”
I knew then that they had planned this—not just after Nicholas fell ill, but perhaps before. How long had my son been waiting for his father to die so he could liquidate our life’s work? How many times had Melissa called, not to check on Nicholas’s health, but to make sure their plan was still in motion?
“I need time,” I said, standing up. “I’m going to bed. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”
But there would be no discussion.
While I lay awake in the bed I’d shared with Nicholas, staring at the ceiling and listening to the familiar creaks of our old farmhouse, my children were making their final preparations. Morning came with the smell of coffee, the expensive kind Brandon had brought from Boston because our local store brand was “undrinkable.” I dressed slowly, my joints stiff with grief and age and the cold knowledge of what my children had become.
When I came downstairs, they were waiting with a small suitcase I didn’t recognize.
“We packed some essentials for you,” Melissa said brightly. “Brandon and I thought we’d drive you to look at Sunny Pines today. It’s a beautiful retirement community just two hours from here.”
“I’m not going to any retirement community,” I replied, pouring myself coffee. “This is my home.”
“Mom, be reasonable,” Brandon said. “The paperwork is done. We close with the developers next week. You can’t stay here.”
I looked at my son—really looked at him—and saw nothing of Nicholas in his face. Nothing of the boy who had once followed his father through the orchard at dawn, asking endless questions about pollination and pruning. Nothing but a stranger who saw me as an inconvenience to be managed.
“I need my medication from the bathroom,” I said quietly. “And I’d like to take some photos.”
“Sure, Mom,” Melissa agreed, relief evident in her voice. “Take whatever personal items you want. We can send the rest later.”
I moved through my home one last time, touching the worn banister Nicholas had sanded and re-varnished every five years. The quilt my grandmother had made that draped across our bed. The window seat where I’d read stories to my children on rainy afternoons.
In the bathroom, I retrieved my medications, but also slipped my passport and birth certificate from the hidden compartment in the medicine cabinet—the one Nicholas had built when we first worried about burglaries in the late ’80s. In our bedroom closet, behind Nicholas’s collection of flannel shirts that still smelled faintly of him, I retrieved the small fireproof box containing the one thing my children didn’t know about.
When I came downstairs, my purse was heavier, but my heart felt lighter with resolve. Brandon was checking his watch.
“Ready?” he asked. It wasn’t really a question.
