Our parents had died in an accident.
That had not changed.
Our relatives had still failed us.
St.
Agnes had still been our home for nearly eight years.
Uncle Sam had still failed to bring us out.
The papers did not erase any of that.
But one fact changed shape completely.
We had believed nobody came for us.
Somebody had.
He just never managed to win.
That evening we walked the farm until sunset.
Emma found the upstairs bedroom Uncle Sam had renovated years earlier.
Beneath faded wallpaper were pencil measurements on the doorframe, as if he had imagined children growing there even though we never arrived.
In the second bedroom sat an old wooden desk.
One drawer held unopened boxes of peppermint sticks.
Emma laughed and cried at the same time.
“He kept buying them.”
I leaned against the doorway.
“Apparently he was optimistic.”
We spent our first night in the farmhouse on mattresses dragged into the living room because the upstairs windows rattled too badly in the wind.
The next morning Mr.
Bell returned.
He laid out the numbers plainly.
The farm would take work.
We could not simply inherit it and expect sentiment to pay taxes.
Some equipment needed repairs.
The barn roof would have to be patched before winter.
The debt schedule was survivable but unforgiving.
Selling remained an option.
Emma looked at me.
For most of our childhood, every major decision had been made by someone else.
Where we slept.
What school we attended.
When we could leave.
Whether relatives could visit.
Whether two siblings counted as too much responsibility for one household.
Now, for the first time, an adult sat across from us and waited for our answer.
I did not feel powerful.
I felt terrified.
But terror and choice were not the same thing.
“We’re not selling,” I said.
Mr.
Bell looked at Emma.
She wiped her palms on her jeans.
“Not yet.”
The lawyer nodded.
“That is a much wiser sentence.”
We kept the farm for one year before promising ourselves anything beyond it.
I took work in Cedar Hollow while learning how much I did not know about fences, tractors, taxes, and livestock.
Emma finished school and spent evenings going through Uncle Sam’s records.
We leased most of the pasture rather than pretending two kids from an orphanage could suddenly run 112 acres alone.
The mineral agreement covered part of the debt.
My wages covered groceries and repairs.
Mr.
Bell helped us keep every deadline straight.
