“That’s because I handled it.”
Mom called the next morning.
She sounded less defensive than Dad.
“How much does the annual filing cost?”
I told her.
“What happens if we miss it?”
I explained that too.
“Who do we contact at the land trust?”
I gave her the name and number.
Then she said quietly:
“I didn’t know it was this involved.”
“It was always this involved.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I did.”
She said nothing.
“I just didn’t make you listen.”
That was the first conversation we had had in nearly a year that did not feel like a courtroom argument.
Their attorney contacted Merritt the following week.
Apparently my parents were “encountering obligations they had not fully anticipated.”
Merritt called me after.
“You never explained the entire scope during litigation.”
“I was never asked.”
“You could have used it against them.”
“I know.”
Most people probably would have.
A dramatic reveal.
A stack of documents dropped on a table.
A speech about everything I had done.
But I was tired of needing them to understand me before I was allowed to stop carrying their responsibilities.
The farm belonged to them again.
So did the work.
Early that spring, Mom asked me to come over.
“Just to talk.”
When I arrived, the conservation folder was open on the kitchen table.
The one I had organized before moving my things out.