Sometimes I’d hear him say, “He’s fine.”
Then, “Good crop.”
Then, “All right.”
He’d hang up and return to his notebook.
I rarely heard from Delaney, either.
I learned about her life through people who knew the family.
She made varsity cheer.
Graduated high school.
Went to college in Kalamazoo.
Got an apartment.
Then a job at a bank.
People would tell me these things at church or the market.
I’d smile.
“That’s good.”
And return to work.
I wasn’t angry every day.
Anger takes energy.
The orchard took most of mine.
But there were evenings when I’d sit on the back steps and wonder whether my parents ever thought about me.
Not as an inconvenience.
Not as the son who’d occupied the bedroom Delaney wanted.
Just as their son.
Grandpa never said anything unkind about them.
When I complained, he’d listen.
Then he’d say, “That’s still your mother, Chase.”
I thought he was trying to keep peace.
Now I understand he was carrying a secret that made every one of those conversations more complicated than I knew.
The last good day we had together came during the Northern Spy harvest.
Grandpa was eighty-nine.
He couldn’t climb ladders anymore.
His knees bothered him, and he tired more quickly than he admitted.
But he still wanted to be outside.
I turned an empty apple bin upside down near the back row and placed a cushion on top.
He sat there grading apples as I brought them down.
“Number one.”
I’d place the apple in the good-fruit bin.
“Cider.”
Into the processing bin.
Then he’d find one with a bad spot, hold it up, and announce, “Pig.”
We didn’t have a pig.
Hadn’t had one in decades.
But Grandpa said it anyway.
Every time, he laughed.
Near the end of the afternoon, sunlight moved low through the branches.
He held a large Northern Spy toward the light.
Then smiled.
“Your grandmother made the finest pie in the county from these.”
I nodded.
“I know. You’ve told me.”
He looked toward me.
Then handed over the apple.
“You’ve done good with these trees, Chase.”
I smiled.
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
He studied me for a moment.
Then said something that made me feel ten feet tall.
“Better than I did, some years.”
I laughed.
“Now I know you’re getting tired.”
He smiled.
Then asked me to help him back toward the house.
We ate dinner.
He went to bed early.
The next morning, he didn’t come downstairs for breakfast.
He had passed away peacefully during the night.
His reading glasses were folded on the bedside table beside his frost notebook.
For a long time, I stood in the doorway.
Then I sat beside his bed and held his hand.
I didn’t know what to say.
So I whispered the thing he always said to me after a difficult day.
“We’ll manage.”
But I wasn’t sure I would.
We buried Grandpa beside Grandma in the township cemetery.
Afterward, friends and neighbors came back to the farmhouse.
The church ladies brought ham, scalloped potatoes, rolls, and enough casseroles to feed half of Sparta.
People stood beneath the apple trees holding paper plates.
Some shared stories about Grandpa.
Others offered help with harvest cleanup.
Then my parents arrived.
Dad’s Buick pulled into the driveway.
Mom stepped out wearing a dark coat.
Delaney followed, looking at her phone.
For a moment, I felt eighteen again.
Standing beside the porch.
Holding a laundry basket.
Wondering whether anybody wanted me.
Mom greeted the pastor.
Spoke warmly to two women from church.
Then approached me.
“Chase.”
I nodded.
“Mom.”
She didn’t hug me.
I noticed.
Then hated myself for noticing.
Dad walked around the property for several minutes.
He studied the barn.
The cold-storage building.
The rows extending down the hill.
Then he returned and placed an arm around my shoulders.
For the first time in nine years, he touched me.
“Don’t worry, son,” he said. “We’ll take this off your hands.”
I looked at him.
For a moment, I couldn’t understand.
Then I saw where he was looking.
The orchard.
The buildings.
The land.
He wasn’t offering to help me grieve.
He was already thinking about taking control.
There was an apple lying in the grass beside my boot.
It had fallen from one of the nearby trees and gone soft along one side.
I bent down.
Picked it up.
And placed it in his hand.
“That’s all you’re taking.”
Dad stared.
Then looked toward Mom.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
He set the apple on the stand counter.
Then walked toward his car.
They left shortly afterward.
Nobody said goodbye.
A week later, Grandpa’s attorney called me.
Mr. Vanderwal had handled his legal affairs for years.
He was a careful man with silver hair, thick glasses, and an office on Main Street in Sparta.
I sat across from him while he reviewed the estate documents.
Grandpa had left the farmhouse, orchard, barns, equipment, and associated property to me.
The will was clear.
Properly signed.
Witnessed.
And supported by years of estate planning.
There were also records showing that Grandpa had been fully capable of making his own decisions when he’d prepared it.
I stared at the document.
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
Then I asked whether he was sure.
Mr. Vanderwal smiled gently.
“Your grandfather was very sure.”
I looked toward the window.
Then whispered.
“He never told me.”
The attorney nodded.
“He wanted you to keep working because you loved the orchard, not because you were waiting to inherit it.”
For a long time, I sat quietly.
Then I began crying.
Not because I’d become a landowner.
Because Grandpa had seen me as someone worth trusting with the life he’d built.
My mother challenged the arrangement briefly through legal counsel.
Her attorney reviewed the documents and concluded there was no sound basis for changing Grandpa’s clearly expressed wishes.
The matter ended without a prolonged dispute.
My parents didn’t call.
But I learned that Dad had already contacted a real estate agent about selling the orchard.
He apparently assumed the property would pass to Mom because she was Grandpa’s only child.
The agent later apologized when she learned the title was mine.
I thanked her.
Then returned to work.
Being the executor meant I had to review Grandpa’s records.
Every drawer.
Every folder.
Every ledger.
The process took most of the winter.
Some things made me smile.
Old seed catalogs.
Photographs of Grandma standing beside the first farm stand.
A receipt for the Chevrolet Grandpa bought used in 1998.
And a little notebook containing measurements for a fence he’d repaired decades earlier.
Then I began reviewing the finances.
The orchard hadn’t been struggling nearly as much as I’d believed.
It produced a modest but steady income.
Some years were better than others.