Thirty-Nine Million Dollars and a Brown Folder on the Kitchen Table

“She wouldn’t say,” Ranata said.

“But I know she’s stressed because she knows you’re struggling.

You isolate yourself on those eighty acres and pretend you don’t need anyone.”

“I don’t need anyone inventing problems for me.”

“Nobody is inventing anything,” she said.

“We live in the real world.

You live in a fantasy where small farms survive forever.”

I didn’t touch my teacup.