I walked to the garden where my roses were. The same ones I had planted when he was little, and asked me why flowers had thorns, to protect themselves from those who want to hurt them. I had explained then. I never thought that one day he would be one of those threats.
“Look, David, do you see these roses? I planted them 20 years ago. I’ve cared for them, pruned them, protected them from pests. No one else knows how to care for them like I do. No one else knows how much water they need, when to fertilize them, how to protect them from the cold.”
I turned to him, holding the white rose I had cut.
“This farm is the same. I know how every foot of this land works. I know every tree, every animal, every problem that can arise. I’ve managed droughts, floods, pests, low prices, high prices. I’ve done it alone for years, especially after your father died.”
“But mom—”
“No, let me finish. In all these years, did you ever see me fail? Did a harvest ever get lost because of me? Were we ever unable to pay the bills? Did this family ever go hungry?”
He couldn’t answer because the answer was no. I had never failed. I had never let anything bad happen to this family.
“So why did you decide I could no longer take care of myself?”
“Why? Because Amber told me that there at Island, Amber told you.”
“And since when does Amber know more about my life than I do?”
Amber stepped forward with her fists clenched.
“I was just trying to help. Your son was worried about you.”
“Lies. My son was worried about the money and you were worried about getting a house without having to work to pay for it.”
“That’s not true, isn’t it? Then explain to me why the day after I signed the papers, you had already set aside $50,000 to buy an apartment in the city.”
David’s face went white. He didn’t know I had seen the messages on his phone when he left it on the table during lunch.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m not blind, David, nor deaf, nor stupid. I saw the messages with the real estate agent. I saw the floor plans for the apartment you wanted to buy with my money.”
Catherine got out of the car again, but this time she looked like a wounded beast.
“All of this is normal. Children always inherit from their parents. We were just speeding up the process.”
“Speeding up? Do you mean you were waiting for me to die?”
“No, I mean it was logical to plan for the future.”
“The future? My future? Without asking me what I wanted for my future.”
I walked to the fence that divides my property from Helen’s. In the distance, I could see the light from her kitchen. She was probably making dinner, unaware that the war that would define the rest of my life was unfolding here.
“Do you know what my future was in your plans? Three meals a day in a communal dining room. A single bed in a room I would share with a stranger. Scheduled activities as if I were a 5-year-old child. Visits once a month if you had time.”
“The home we chose was very good,” Amber protested.
“Did you visit it?”
“Well, we saw the pictures online.”
“The pictures online? You were going to lock up your husband’s mother in a place you didn’t even know in person.”
David approached then with that lost child face that broke my heart despite everything.
“Mom, forgive me. I know we messed up, but we can fix this. We can start over.”
For a moment, just a moment, I was tempted to forgive, to hug him like when he was little and had nightmares. To tell him everything was going to be okay.
But then I remembered the conversation I had overheard three nights ago when they thought I was asleep. David telling Amber, “It won’t be long now. When she’s in the home, we can do whatever we want with the farm. Start over as if nothing happened.”
“Yes, exactly. We can forget all this. David, look me in the eyes.”
He did. In those eyes, I saw the boy he had been, but also the man he had become. A man capable of betraying his own mother for money.
“I can’t forget. And even if I could, I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
