Page 5 of Apple of My Eye

Chapter Five

Eloise

Reasons I Think I’m in the Midst of a Continuous Heatstroke

– My parents want to sell the farm

– I’ve already drank Mom out of her supply of iced tea

– I saw a hot man at the Parkers’ place (this was a heat-induced hallucination)

– I forgot to bring JJ his after-lunch unripe apple

– I almost tripped on our largest (and loudest) chicken, Emily Chickenson

– I can’t stop thinking about my hallucination. Like, he was really good looking

– My parents want to sell the farm

‘You’re what?’ I splutter.

‘You heard your mother,’ Dad says, in a voice I’ve never heard before.

‘I don’t think I heard her right!’ I reply, my voice pole-vaulting into a higher frequency.

‘Lou.’ Mom reaches a hand towards me. My stomach flips, and I regret eating as much as I did. ‘Things have been bad for a while now .?.?. we thought you would see this coming.’

‘I did,’ I say. ‘I mean, I knew things were bad, but you hadn’t said anything about selling.’

They exchange glances.

‘We haven’t officially decided. We’re gonna see how this fall goes, but .?.?. it’s not looking good.’

‘What am I supposed to do?’ I ask quietly, the realization that my future is being taken away from me hitting me like a ton of bricks. All of my hard work this summer, just gone .

‘We thought about that too.’ Mom is gentle, her hand reaching towards me across the table.

I catch the glint of a tear in her eye and look away.

‘But even if we sell, you’ll be fine. You’re so smart, and you have this great degree you can put to use anywhere.

Didn’t you say you liked the research you were doing in the lab? You could .?.?. do that?’

‘Mom.’ My voice catches, but I push through. ‘That’s not how that works .?.?. I already gave that up .?.?. I .?.?. I thought I would be back here with you. I don’t understand .?.?. why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

My dad clears his throat but stays quiet.

‘Who would you sell it to?’

‘Lou,’ Dad cuts in, his voice has an edge to it. Don’t go there , he’s saying, but I can’t help myself.

‘We can’t sell out to another big corporation!’ I cry out. ‘Everyone is doing that. This region will be ruined .’ My heart starts to beat faster. I glance at Dad, pleading. ‘You said you would never sell to them.’

Dad hangs his head and it breaks my heart to see him so defeated. I change the subject. ‘If you sell .?.?. then what?’ I manage to ask, my voice coming out even more high-pitched.

‘We don’t know.’ Mom shrugs. She glances at Dad. ‘Retire, I guess.’

‘You can’t expect me to believe that’s what you want to be doing, you two have been judging retirees for years. You’re literally aways asking how they fill their days. And JJ, what about him? And what about—’ I stop myself before I ask about the one word we never discuss— money .

‘Honey, I know we have a lot to figure out, but it’s looking like we don’t have another choice.’

‘But you do have another choice,’ I say. ‘We only started organic last year. Can’t you give it a chance to catch up? The apples sell for more. It works, I swear . We did so many case studies on it at school.’

‘I don’t know if it makes sense to wait that long,’ Dad cuts in, finally adding to the conversation. ‘I’ve been running the numbers and we would need to give it another year or two and even then we just max out our orchards and it’s still not enough yield.’

‘What if I can show you how to make it enough?’ I counter.

Dad gazes at me intensely, as if he can read my mind.

He’s done this since I can remember, and without fail, every time it leads to me telling the truth about something I wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge.

I fidget in my seat. ‘I thought the Parkers’ farm would fail,’ I confess, ‘and I applied for a loan to buy them out.’

Mom goes as white as a sheet.

Dad lets out a breath of air, like the wind has been sapped from his sails.

‘It was just an application,’ I whisper. ‘I don’t even know if we’ll get it. We can turn it down,’ I add, like I’m trying to convince myself that it wasn’t the culmination of all my work as a graduate student.

Dad gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing. My gaze travels up his weathered face, snagging on the graying hair at his temples. ‘Why don’t you walk us through it,’ he says. Mom is perfectly still, like she isn’t even breathing. I can feel the tension radiating through the air.

‘You were right about the margins. We don’t have a big enough piece of property.

Other farms our size get by on other things—tours, weddings, hayrides, being Instagram-perfect spots to pick apples.

They drive in traffic from tourists that keeps them afloat.

They sell jams and convert to B & Bs. But that isn’t us.

We farm apples. And to do it, we need more apples and more land.

And—’ I take a breath before I add the last part of the puzzle, my pièce de résistance ‘—we need it to be regenerative.’

Dad rolls his eyes.

‘Hey!’

‘Regenerative schmenerative,’ he grumbles.

‘Cal.’ Mom levels a look at him.

I give her an appreciative half-smile before continuing.

‘I’m serious. Banks are investing in regenerative agriculture because the FAA is pushing them to do it.

They get a percentage of loan forgiveness if the farmer is regenerative ag and defaults.

I knew you guys hadn’t been able to secure a loan in the past .

.?.’ I hesitate, expecting fallout from my knowing something Mom didn’t know that I knew, but there is none, she just nods at me, like she expected Dad told me all along.

‘I think we just need the Parkers’. We couldn’t spin this farm into regenerative ag by itself.

We need pigs and cows and sheep and geese, and right now we hardly have enough space for our chickens and bees.

We need a whole new round of cover crops, and we need to start growing something other than apples, I’m thinking—’

‘You’ve outlined all of this in the application for the loan?’ Dad asks, cutting me off.

I nod.

He settles back in his chair, but an unmistakable flash of pride flickers across his face.

‘Did you ask Linden about this?’ Mom asks.

My face falls. ‘Well .?.?.’ I trail off. ‘You know we don’t exactly see eye to eye on the farm stuff.’

In truth, I would have loved to get Linden’s opinion.

But Linden vocalizing that he wants me to do something bigger with my degree than stay at home is a discussion I’m not ready to have.

Focusing on what I’m angry about—Linden’s choice to make money for other people instead of do his part to protect the planet—is easier than potentially facing his disappointment in me.

The last time we talked about the farm our conversation turned into an argument almost immediately.

Dad interrupts my thoughts. ‘I bet that was a lot of work,’ he says in a low voice.

‘It was my Master’s thesis,’ I admit.

Mom’s jaw drops open. ‘You wrote your thesis on us buying the Parkers’ farm?’

‘We need the land!’ I argue.

The kitchen is silent. An owl hoots from the backyard, a sound that usually comforts me, but now just raises goosebumps across my skin.

I love this place. I don’t want to have to give it up.

How did everything happen so fast? One minute I’m building my future around saving our family farm, and the next my parents are telling me they want to sell?

‘It could work.’ Dad sits back in his chair. He doesn’t meet Mom’s gaze.

It seems, I think, as we clean up dishes silently and trudge to bed, that my dad would consider buying the Parkers’ too.

I spend the entire day working with Dad and we don’t address the prospect of selling or the loan.

Instead, we work harder than usual, filling the silence with productivity.

It’s all I can do to flop onto the couch in a sweaty heap.

‘I’m exhausted,’ I say, wiping sweat from my hairline.

‘I don’t want to move another step today. I think I have heatstroke.’

Mom walks over to the couch and lays a hand on my forehead.

‘You seem fine, sweetie. Plus, you’ll have to take a couple steps for dinner.

I made your favorite.’ Dad and I returned from the fields at the same time, and he’s sitting next to me, shuffling a deck of cards.

His head perks up at my mom’s words and she laughs.

‘Yes, your favorite too,’ she confesses, turning to walk into the kitchen and slide a pan of lasagna into the oven.

Before she goes, she stares at me a beat too long.

‘I know there’s things we need to talk about,’ she says, ‘but let’s try to just enjoy dinner tonight.

’ Mom hates conflict, and I’m exhausted, so I acquiesce, giving her a soft smile while on the inside I feel like crying.

Lily calls me just as my dad deals out a hand of gin rummy. I flash the screen at him, already knowing how he’ll respond. ‘You should get that,’ he says. ‘Tell her your mother and I said hello.’ For as long as Lily and I have been best friends, he’s thought of her as a second daughter.

‘My dad says hi!’ I say as I pick up.

‘Cal!’ I can hear Lily’s smile through the phone.

‘She says hi,’ I say to Dad as I leave the room, heading upstairs for some privacy. ‘What’re you doing?’ I ask Lily.

‘Making dinner.’

I laugh. ‘Crazy that we’re three hours apart and still doing things at the same time.’

‘Things are so early there,’ Lily says, like even the mere thought of a 6 p.m. dinner causes her physical pain. ‘How is it? Being back?’

‘Lily. They want to sell.’

‘The Parkers? That’s great!’

‘No. My parents.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Woah. Damn. I’m so sorry, Lou .?.?. what does that mean for .?.?.’

‘The loan? My future?’ My voice cracks. ‘I don’t know. I have this fall to prove to them that we should keep it, I guess.’

‘What does Linden think?’