“They’ve treated us like dirt for four generations, Clive!” Mitchell yelled. “Mightier-than-thou McKennas who think they are God’s gift to farming. So superior. So fucking arrogant! Verdacorp is the future, and if you don’t get with the program, you’ll have nothing. Don’t you see? Family farms are done. Over. Economies of scale and vertical economics are the only way to profit. By holding out you are only prolonging the demise of what you claim to love.”
Clive’s voice was quiet. “At what cost? You’ve lost your soul.”
Mitchell’s hands balled into fists. “You think they didn’t screw Dad every chance they got because he was an idiot? It wasn’t until I took over that the Robinson name began to mean something again. And don’t look at me as if you’re innocent, big brother,” Mitchell spat out. “Whose idea was it to get back the contracts in the first place?” Suddenly, he stopped talking.
The room went still.
Mitchell blinked, realizing too late.
“Out! All of you!”
Ellen and Travis left, Clive right behind them.
“I’m sorry, Ellen,” Clive said. “I never wanted anyone in your family to get hurt. I didn’t know what Mitchell was doing.”
“You knew about the contracts,” she said pointedly.
With a long face, he nodded. “There was an error in the last four contracts we executed and we had to get them back. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
“Tell that to Greg Baldwin,” she said. “You’re lucky he made it, otherwise you and Mitchell would be accessories to murder.”
He nodded solemnly. “I’ll do what I can to keep Mitchell from coming after you.”
She turned to face him, searched his face. Guilt? Good. But that wouldn’t bring John back.
“Tell me you didn’t know what Tom was doing,” she said quietly as they stood on the front porch. “Please, just tell me the truth.”
“Mitchell’s a bastard,” Clive said, “but I never thought he’d sink that low. I am so sorry.”
She wanted to go back and hit Mitchell. Scream at him. Tell him that he had stolen a good man from his family, all out of envy and greed and hate.
But it wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Instead, she walked to the truck without saying a word.
Travis followed, silent. Once they were safely inside the truck, he pulled a small digital recorder from his coat and clicked it off. “I hope this is enough.”
Ellen stared at the device; jaw tight. “It’ll have to be.”
Then she cried.
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
Ellen took her coffee out to the porch as the sun crept up on the horizon. Her thick ceramic mug warmed her hands as she hunched into her warm jacket. The day before Thanksgiving promised to be crystal-clear blue skies for as far as the eye could see. The chilly morning would rise to a respectable sixty-eight degrees by the afternoon.
She loved this time in the morning, while her children still slept, before the animals needed tending, when the birds were just starting to wake up. The peace, the silence, the overwhelming sense of awe.
John should be with her today. He should be with her every day. But it had been nearly eighteen months since he died, and while she would never stop missing him, the raw, stifling pain was gone, replaced by a dull ache that she suspected she would live with forever.
And that was okay. Because for the first time since his death, Ellen felt optimistic about the future.
River and Stormy, two of the four kittens born to the stray catCleo, ran over to her and wound around her ankles. Ellen had planned for them to be barn cats when she brought them home from Travis’s at eight weeks old; they ended up being house cats. They slept in Bobby’s room but got up with Ellen, coming downstairs as soon as they heard her making coffee. She fed them and they came out with her to the porch. After getting more pets, they wrestled on the porch for a minute, before running back into the house when they heard a truck turn up the driveway.
Right on time, Ellen thought. In fact, Ryan was a few minutes early.
He parked by the equipment shed and crossed the yard over to her, raising his hand in greeting. “Hello, Mrs. McKenna.”
