Chapter 37
“That's yours?”
I nodded.
“Did Grandmother say it?”
I smiled.
“No.
But I think she would have.”
He laughed softly.
Then he put an arm around me.
We stood beneath the branches together.
For a while,
nobody spoke.
The wind moved overhead.
Leaves brushed against one another.
Somewhere along the path,
a child laughed.
I looked at my father.
The man who once
shook his head
at my old pickup
was standing beside me
in the shade of a tree
I had fought to preserve.
He wasn't looking at my clothes.
Or wondering what I could afford.
He was looking at something
I had built,
protected,
and loved.
Finally,
he said,
“I'm proud of you, Fay.”
I felt tears rise.
I had heard those words
from teachers.
Neighbors.
Business partners.
Attorneys.
People who knew
only a fraction of my life.
But hearing them from Dad
was different.
Not because his approval
made my work valuable.
It had always been valuable.
Because the little girl inside me,
the one who once
held up a muddy sunflower pot
and waited for someone
to notice what she'd grown,
had finally been seen.
“Thank you, Dad,” I whispered.
He kissed my forehead.
Then Mom joined us.
Willa wrapped her arms around us both.
And for a few quiet moments,
we stood together
beneath the tree
that had outlasted everything.
Before we left,
Mom handed me an envelope.
It was small.
Cream-colored.
The paper had yellowed slightly.
“What's this?” I asked.
She looked nervous.
“Something I found
when we were sorting through
the old family photographs.”
I opened it carefully.
Inside was a birthday card.
Not a recent one.
The printed design
had faded with age.
Across the front,
someone had written my name.
Fay.
I recognized the handwriting.
Grandmother's.
My breath caught.
Inside was a short letter.
Dated fifteen years earlier.
The year I bought my farm.
I unfolded it slowly.
Grandmother had written
about the afternoon
I showed her the land.
She described
the broken fences.
The overgrown fields.
The old shed
with the leaking roof.
And then she wrote something
I had never seen before.
\*Everyone sees how much work
you have ahead of you.
I see how happy you are
when you talk about it.\*
My vision blurred.
I kept reading.
\*I hope you never let anyone
convince you that your life
must look impressive
to be a good one.\*
A tear fell onto the paper.