I flagged every page with a red discrepancy, penciled the amount in the margin, and built a running tally on a pad I kept by my elbow.
After an hour, I had four neat stacks: accounts payable, accounts receivable, active contracts, and—my favorite—the “miscellaneous” folder, which included such gems as a blank check for twenty dollars made out to “CASH” with a post-it that said “DO NOT USE” and a rubber-banded lump of receipts for farm supply stores I’d never heard of.
Hooper sat opposite me, working on something that required a socket wrench and a lot of concentration. He didn’t try to help, which was its own kind of help.
Every so often, he’d glance over the top of his mug and ask a question—“You want more coffee?” or “How old is Emilio when babies start walking?”—and I’d answer without looking up, knowing he was just making sure I was still there.
Around two, he scooted his chair closer and started reading the pile I’d flagged as “Open Issues.”
He picked one at random, scanned it, and said, “What’s wrong with this one?”
I turned it around. “Vendor billed for three rolls of barbed wire, you paid for four. There’s a credit line here—” I tapped the ledger, “—but it never got applied.”
He frowned, looked at the page again, and said, “So we owe them a roll?”
“No,” I said, “they owe us.”
He nodded, satisfied, and moved to the next.
It went on like that for a while: me finding the problem, him confirming the context. Once or twice, we ran into something neither of us could explain, and he’d just write “ASK RAWLEY” in big block letters across the top of the page.
I started to enjoy it, the way the numbers lined up, the way every answer led to another question. It was a puzzle, but one with a solution, and for the first time in a long time, I could see the shape of it coming together.
We hit our first real argument around three-thirty.
“This,” I said, “should be categorized as maintenance, not capital improvement.”
Hooper looked at the invoice. “It’s a new tractor part. Capital improvement.”
“Not if it’s replacing something that broke,” I said. “Maintenance is for repairs, capital is for upgrades. Otherwise you’re depreciating it over five years instead of writing it off now.”
He made a face. “You sure?”
“Positive,” I said.
He leaned back, considered. “What about if you swap a part with an upgrade?”
I smiled. “Then you have to split the cost by percentage of improvement versus repair. It’s not pretty, but it’s the rule.”
He looked at the invoice again, shrugged, and pushed it across the table. “Fine. You’re the boss.”
The phrase hung in the air for a beat, long enough for both of us to feel it. He didn’t mean it, not like that, but it hit a nerve I hadn’t realized was exposed.
I nodded, once, and made the correction.
At four, Rawley came in from the yard, shaking the snow off his boots and tracking half of it across the tile before he noticed the spread of paper on the table.
He stopped, surveyed the chaos, and said, “Jesus, you two building a bonfire?”
Hooper grinned. “Only if we can roast the next round of invoices on it.”
Rawley eyed the stacks, then looked at me. “You finding what you need?”
I held up the “ASK RAWLEY” pile. “I have some questions.”
He snorted. “Bet you do.” He took a folder from under his arm and set it gently on the table, far from the coffee rings and the reach of sticky baby hands. “For you,” he said.
I took the folder, expecting another round of ledgers, but it was slim—just a few sheets inside. I opened it, and my throat went dry.
