I called Mr. Haskins at nine.
He picked up on the second ring. “Annie. I hoped you’d call.”
“You knew.”
“I drafted the deed myself.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your father asked me not to. He said you’d understand it better if you came to it yourself.”
“He was always doing that.”
“He was.” A pause. I heard an old clock ticking slowly in his office. “Annie, would you come in? I have something I should have given you three weeks ago.”
His office was above the old Farmers Bank on Main Street, up a narrow flight of wooden stairs, in a room that smelled of paper, pipe tobacco, and coffee. He sat me in a leather chair and took a long white envelope from his desk drawer.
“Your father gave me this last April,” he said. “My instructions were to give it to you if, and only if, you found the pins.”
It was sealed with plain tape, with my name on the front in Dad’s blocky, slanting handwriting. Annie.
“Shall I leave you alone?”
“No. Stay.”
I opened it. It was a single sheet of lined paper, folded in thirds and written in pencil.
Annie,
If you’re reading this, you walked the line. Good. I knew you would.
I’m sorry about the will. I know how it looks. I know Dale laughed. I knew he would. I wanted him to.
Here’s what I did and why.
I gave Dale the farm because he’s my son, and because in 1983, standing in the yard with his bag packed, he asked if he could have it someday. I said yes. I never took it back. A man keeps his word, even a foolish one.
But I’ve watched him for forty years. He doesn’t love the ground. He loves what it’s worth. He’ll sell it a piece at a time and never miss it. I couldn’t bear that.
So I kept the door. The gate, the well, the tile. The things that make a farm a farm and not just land. I kept them for you, because you’re the one who knows what they are.
I don’t want you to hold it over him. I want you to hold it for him. Until he’s ready.
He’s a good boy underneath. He got scared in 1983. He thought the farm would eat him alive, so he ran. He’s been running ever since, and I let him, because I was a proud old fool who didn’t know how to say come home.
You can’t make him stay. But you can make him ask.
You stayed, Annie. Every day. Nobody ever said thank you. I’m saying it now, badly, in pencil.
Thank you.
I’m sorry it took a fence.
Dad
P.S. A chain is sixty-six feet. Remember.
I don’t know how long I sat there. At some point Mr. Haskins handed me a large white linen handkerchief folded in quarters, and I used it. He didn’t say anything, and I was grateful. Outside on Main Street, a tractor rumbled past and a woman called to a child.
I folded the letter along its creases and put it in my purse with the survey.
“Mr. Haskins,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “Can Dale fight this?”
He folded his hands.
“He can try, and I won’t pretend otherwise. The deed is clean. It was recorded a year before your father died, while he was of sound mind, with a certified survey and a gift tax return. His doctor in Holdrege wrote a letter about his competence that same month. It’s in my file.” He paused. “But a landlocked owner in Nebraska has options. He could ask a court to find he has an easement by necessity. Or he could petition the county board for a private road and pay you damages. Either way, he’d be looking at a year or two of litigation and twenty or thirty thousand dollars in legal fees. And no buyer will close on a farm with a lawsuit hanging over the access.”
“So it’s not a wall.”
“No,” he said. “Your father knew that. It’s a gate. It slows a man down long enough to make him think.”
“What do you intend to do, Annie?”
“I intend to give my brother a chance to ask,” I said.
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