Chapter Twenty-Seven

Her words make no sense. “What do you mean it’s tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is the thirtieth.” The date glows on Mom’s phone screen.

“That’s not right. Tomorrow can’t be the end of the month. I checked.” I snag my calendar off the piano. “See? April 30 is a Friday. It’s only the beginning of the week.”

Mom takes the calendar from my hands and turns the pages, pausing to touch a note Dad scribbled up the side. “It was on Friday years ago when your dad first made this calendar. This year, the thirtieth is tomorrow.”

The dates change every year. I know that. I know Dad’s calendar isn’t from this year—that the dates are all wrong—but with everything going on, I forgot. “Tomorrow is the last day? The day the bank gets the farm if somebody doesn’t buy it?”

“Yes, but one of Dolly’s clients from the first open house still has an offer for us. If it’s between the bank and that offer, we’ll take the offer. Whatever happens, we’ll be okay. Please don’t say anything to Grandpa. I’ll tell him tomorrow, after he’s rested.” Her arms enfold me in a tight hug before dropping the calendar on the counter and then stepping into her sewing room. A moment later, she returns with a big blanket in her arms.

“I was going to save these for a special day, but I think I’d rather you both had them tonight.” She shakes out the ­blankets—there are two—and holds the top edge up so I can see the pattern. Fabric cut from my dad’s shirts and jeans fills every square.

I reach for a corner, run a hand over the material, and lean close to take a big whiff. It might be my imagination, but I think I can still smell him. I pull the blanket from her arms and bury my face in the folds.

“I’ve been working on them for months, whenever I couldn’t study or think. I thought maybe it might help, for when you need one of his hugs.”

“I love it.” I lean into her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I’ve been thinking.” Mom folds the quilts into neat piles. “Maybe we should invite Asher over for breakfast in the morning. It might be good to have a reporter document what this is like. That was his story, remember? People losing their farms.”

“I don’t want to be in that story.”

“But you are in it. And maybe, someday, you can look back and remember something you forgot because of something he wrote.”

“Maybe.” With her kiss on my cheek, I grab Scotty’s quilt and mine to take them both up to our beds.

Long after Mom closes her door to study, the calendar mocks me. Every puzzle has a key, a legend, a map as to what it should look like, or how to solve it. Every engine has a manual listing all the parts, directions for how to use them, and maintenance for how to keep them running.

Dad’s calendar is the only manual I’ve got, and I’ve followed it a thousand times. And every time, it was right—except this time.

I followed it too close and missed the bigger picture.

I lean on the kitchen counter and cup Kimana’s beaded peacock in my hand.

So, was the calendar my guide, or my tail? Did it ever show me the way? Or has it only been pulling me down?

Maybe sometimes things can do both at the same time if we cling to them too tight.

My gaze drifts from the peacock to the wall, where me and Scotty smile back from a dozen silly pictures pinned to a bulletin board—from back when things were easier. When we did chores together because we wanted to, not because we had to. Back when Mom used to sing—when she had a reason to sing.

And suddenly I see all the faces I’ve trained myself not to see over the last nine months. There, on the board beside Scotty, me, Grandpa, and Mom, is Dad.

He smiles in every photo.

He laughs while holding Mom’s hand.

He reaches for me from the saddle.

And he waves from the seat of his tractor, with laughter in his eyes and a smile just for me. I know, because I took the picture. He wasn’t smiling before; he was just working. But then I came, and he smiled. He said I was the best part of his day.

Staring at the pictures, I realize that, somewhere in the middle of all the work, I forgot about Dad’s smiles.

Would he be happy or sad we were selling the farm? Would he think I did enough to keep my promise? Or would he only care that we were still together?

I tap the chair backs as I walk around the table, but I stop a seat early, my fingers resting on the edge of Dad’s chair.

Prickles zip up every fingertip, like someone hooked a low-volt electric fence to the chair, but instead of pulling away, I grasp the chair, slide it away from the table, and sit down.

My skin tingles everywhere it touches the chair. I’ve been trying to take Dad’s place for almost a year. Seems right to sit here now. Besides, if not now, then when?

I pull my wishstone out, set it on the table, and close my eyes. What would Dad say if he were here? He’d smile at me and say . . . he’d say . . .

I spread my fingers over the arms of the chair, as if I could pull his words from the wood, but nothing comes to me.

With a sigh, I open my eyes and focus on Kimana’s note cards poking out of the napkin holder in the center of the table. She’d left them in the barn the other day, and I’d meant to return them to her, but then she was gone and things just got crazy. I reach for them, my peacock necklace clicking against the table when I lean over.

One after the other, I read them all. But the last few I read aloud, and I swear my dad’s voice echoes every word.

“‘It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.’ J.K. Rowling.”

Dad would say, “Stay in the moment.”

I set the card aside.

“‘It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’ Lewis Carroll.”

“What’s done is done. I’ll do my best, and God can do the rest”—’cause none of us is perfect, and none of us can do it alone.

“‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.’ Dr. Seuss. ”

“Focus on the smiles, the laughter, the love.”

As I set the cards back into the napkin holder, my necklace clicks against the table again, and an idea sprouts in my head. Like any crop worth growing, it’s my job to tend it.

Grabbing the wishstone off the table, I stand up and slide Dad’s chair back into place. It might be that this’ll work, or it might be that I’ll fail, but at least I know I’ll be okay either way. All that’s left is to try.

I’ve got one more big job to do here on the farm, and this time, it’s a work of heart.