Abby rode with him the whole afternoon. When I brought them ham sandwiches at four o’clock, she was explaining to him how her dad liked to do the end rows first. And Luke was nodding, very seriously. Like she was teaching him something he didn’t already know.

It rained on Friday.

A slow, soft, all-day rain. The kind you pray for on fresh-planted ground. I stood at the kitchen window of that little white farmhouse and watched it come down on my forty acres. I said a prayer for every single seed.

Saturday was too wet to run.

I had about twenty acres left to plant. Across the road, they had their last field on the north end.

On Saturday evening, the phone rang.

It was Lori.

“Sunday dinner’s at twelve-thirty,” she said. “Like always. I expect you and Abby.”

I didn’t answer right away.

“I’m setting your places, Melissa,” she said. “Whether you come or not, I’m setting them. So you might as well come and eat.”

We went to church in the morning. Pastor Lindgren shook my hand at the door and held on to it longer than usual.

Afterward, we drove across the road to the house I’d lived in for twenty years. I parked in the yard, in the same spot I’d parked a thousand times.

It was strange walking in that back door as a guest.

Lori had put out a fresh tablecloth. The white one with the blue stitching around the edges. The roast was resting on the stove. The whole house smelled like gravy and fresh rolls.

Scott was there with his wife, Deb. Luke was there. And Randy was sitting at the head of the table, where he’d always sat at  family dinners since his dad passed.

There were two places set on the left side of the table.

At one of them sat my old coffee cup.

The white one with the chip in the handle. I’d left it behind in the cupboard the day we moved because I didn’t have room in the box.

Randy stood up when we came in. That wasn’t like him. He stood there and waited until I sat down before he sat back down.

We bowed our heads, and Scott said grace.

Then Randy didn’t pick up his fork.

“Melissa,” he said. “I need to say something before we eat. Or I won’t be able to eat.”

The whole table went quiet.

“The bank was on me,” Randy said. “That’s true. Kyle Hoffman wanted the books cleaned up before he’d renew the line. But that’s not the real reason.”

He stared down at his plate.

“The reason is, I wanted Luke to have a place to come home to,” he said. “I wanted it settled before planting so he’d stay. And I told myself the check was the kind thing. That you’d be glad to be done with it. That a widow wouldn’t want to be farming with her husband’s brothers anyway.”

He looked down at his big hands on the tablecloth.

“That was a lie I told myself,” he said. “Because it made it easier. It was the wrong day. And it was the wrong way. Lori told me so, and I didn’t listen.”

He stopped. Lori put her hand on his arm.

“Then I watched you lift those bags,” Randy said. “That first day. And I stood out there at the edge of the field with Luke, and I thought, that’s Jeff’s wife. Out there by herself. And I’m standing here watching. And I couldn’t think of one single thing to say for myself.”

I sat there with my hands folded in my lap.

“I’m sorry,” Randy said. “If you want the house back, it’s yours. Luke and I already talked about it. He’ll find something in town.”

Across the table, Luke nodded.

I looked at them. The whole table full of them.

These were the people I’d spent my whole grown-up life with. These were the people who came to the  hospital the night Abby was born. Who sat with me in the emergency room the night Jeff broke his wrist falling off a grain bin. Who stood around his grave with me seven weeks earlier.

“I don’t want the house back,” I said.

Randy looked up.

“I have a house,” I said. “It’s across the road, and it’s got eighty acres with it. And I’m going to finish planting it tomorrow.”

Randy nodded slowly.

“But I’d like to come to Sunday dinner,” I said. “And I’d like Abby to keep riding with Luke, if he’ll have her. And when that eighty needs harvesting this fall, I’d like to rent your combine. At a fair rate. Instead of hiring somebody from Superior.”

“You’ll use it free,” Randy said.

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