from the bottom pasture.
Across the gravel drive, the seed shed door stood open three inches, spilling a sharp yellow beam of light across the stones.
I walked across the driveway, my work shoes crunching in the loose rock. Inside the shed, the single overhead light bulb hung on a braided black cord from the wooden rafters, swaying slightly in the draft from the doorway.
The shed smelled of seed corn, machine oil, and cold iron. Travis sat on an iron-wheeled swivel chair behind his small metal desk. On the corner of the blotter, a heavy brass paperweight shaped like a John Deere tractor held down a stack of seed bills and fuel receipts. He held a steel hitch pin in his left hand and a rag soaked in black oil in his right, working grease into the dark threads.
“She has lived under your roof since she was eight
