Sarah Comes Home

The Honest Season

Chapter 16: Sarah Comes Home

She came on a Friday. She came on a Friday because Friday was the day that the flight from Denver landed in Williston at 3:47 in the afternoon, the United Express flight, the regional jet, the CRJ-200 that carried fifty passengers from Denver International to Williston Basin International, the flight that crossed Wyoming and Montana at 37,000 feet and that descended over the badlands and the oil fields and the Yellowstone River and that landed on the single runway that the oil boom built and that the oil bust did not unbuild because the runway was concrete and concrete endured, endured the way the farm endured, the way the land endured, the physical infrastructure outlasting the economic conditions that produced it.

Ruth drove to Williston to pick her up. She drove the F-150, the truck that was not clean, the truck that carried the evidence of the week -- the seed-treatment stain on the passenger seat, the soil thermometer in the cup holder, the Rust hair on the upholstery, the accumulation of the working life that Ruth did not clean for Sarah's arrival because cleaning the truck for Sarah's arrival would be a performance and Ruth did not perform, did not arrange the surfaces of her life for viewing, did not convert the actual into the presentable, the refusal that Sarah understood because Sarah grew up in the actual, grew up in the truck with the dog hair and the thermometer and the stain.

The airport was small. The airport was the kind of airport that existed in oil towns and farm towns and the towns that served both -- the terminal building that was new because the oil money built it and that was too large because the oil money overestimated and that held, in its oversized lobby, the particular emptiness of a building designed for a population that did not arrive, the population that the oil boom promised and that the oil bust revoked.

Sarah came through the gate. She came through the gate the way Sarah came through every gate -- walking fast, the stride that was long for a woman who was five-foot-six, the stride of a woman who moved through spaces with the efficiency of a person who had places to be, the Denver stride, the professional stride, the stride that Ruth recognized and that Ruth had never possessed because Ruth's stride was the farm stride, the walk that covered ground without hurrying because the ground was always there and the hurrying did not change the distance.

She was thirty-three. She was thirty-three and she lived in Denver and she worked for a company that Ruth understood as a concept but not as an activity -- a consulting firm, a management consulting firm, the firm that advised other companies on how to manage themselves, the advising that Ruth could not understand because the managing of a farm was self-evident, was the work itself telling you what to manage, the wheat telling you when to plant and the weather telling you when to spray and the moisture telling you when to cut, the managing that did not require a consultant because the consultant was the season and the season did not charge a fee.

Sarah had Tom's eyes. She had the Enger blue, the pale blue that Carl had and that Tom had and that David had, the blue that was the color of a January sky in Montana, the blue that was cold and clear and that saw what it looked at without embellishment, the blue that was honest because honest was the only color that blue could be, the transparency of an iris that hid nothing.

"Hi, Mom," Sarah said.

"Hi, Sarah," Ruth said.

They did not hug. They had not hugged at airports since Sarah was fourteen, since the age when physical affection between mother and daughter became a negotiation rather than a reflex, the negotiation that some mothers and daughters resolved and that Ruth and Sarah had not resolved but had replaced, had replaced with the greeting, the words, the verbal acknowledgment that stood in for the physical contact, the words doing the work of the arms, the greeting doing the work of the embrace.

Sarah put her bag in the truck bed. She put it there without asking, without ceremony, the suitcase tossed onto the corrugated steel the way a person tosses a bag who grew up tossing bags into truck beds, the muscle memory of the farm child, the memory that Denver did not erase because Denver did not have a truck bed and the absence of the truck bed preserved the memory of the truck bed, the way the absence of the farm preserved the memory of the farm.

They drove east. They drove east on Route 2, through Williston, through the Bakken oil field, through the landscape that had changed since Sarah was a child -- the pump jacks and the tank batteries and the flare stacks that burned the excess gas, the flames that were visible at night, the landscape of extraction that lay between the airport and the farm, the landscape that was neither farming nor not-farming but was the other thing that the land could be used for, the other value that the land held, the value beneath the soil that was not wheat but was oil and that the oil companies extracted the way the farmers extracted the wheat, the parallel economies of surface and subsurface, the two uses of the same land, the two answers to the question of what the land was for.

"How's the wheat?" Sarah said.

She asked because she knew to ask. She asked because asking about the wheat was the protocol, was the first question, was the verbal handshake between a farm daughter and a farm mother, the question that opened the conversation the way a key opens a door, the turning of the familiar that gave access to the interior.

"Good," Ruth said. "Survived the hail. Most of it."

"How bad was it?"

"Lost the northeast quarter of Section 8. Insurance will cover seventy percent."

"Seventy percent."

"Seventy percent of the loss. Not seventy percent of the crop."

Sarah nodded. She understood the distinction. She understood the distinction because she grew up understanding the distinction, because the distinction between the loss and the crop and the percentage of each was the arithmetic of farming and the arithmetic of farming was the language of her childhood, the language she carried to Denver the way a person carries an accent, the language that surfaced when she came home, when the questions resumed, when the wheat was the subject.

They passed through Culbertson. They passed through the four blocks that constituted Culbertson's commercial district -- the bar, the grocery store, the post office, the elevator. Sarah looked at the elevator. She looked at the concrete silos the way a person looks at a landmark of their childhood, with the recognition that is not nostalgia but is the confirmation that the thing is still there, that the world you left has not dissolved in your absence, that the physical facts of your childhood persist.

They turned onto the county road. They drove the seven miles from Culbertson to the Enger place, the seven miles that Ruth drove every time she went to town and that Sarah used to drive when Sarah lived here, the seven miles that were the distance between the farm and the world, the distance that Sarah crossed permanently in 2011 when she left for college and that she now crossed temporarily, in the F-150, in July, for a weekend.

The farm appeared. The buildings -- the house, the barn, the bins, the shop -- the buildings that constituted the Enger place, the physical plant of the operation, the structures that Arvid began and Carl expanded and Tom maintained and Ruth now held, the buildings that Sarah grew up among and that Sarah left.

She looked at them. Ruth watched Sarah look at them and the watching was the reading, the mother reading the daughter's face the way Ruth read the wheat, for the signs, for the color, for the indicators of the internal condition, the reading that a mother cannot stop performing even when the child is thirty-three and lives in Denver and works for a company that advises other companies and that pays Sarah $118,000 a year, the salary that was more than twice what the farm earned in a good year and that was the number that Ruth knew because Sarah told her, told her the way David told her about the offer, the children sharing the numbers with the mother because the numbers were the language, the family's language, the common tongue of people who grew up calculating yield per acre and price per bushel and the margin between surviving and not surviving.

They parked. Ruth parked beside the house, in the place she always parked, the gravel rectangle that was worn by the tires of the F-150 and the tires of the trucks before it, the parking place that was not paved but was established, was the convention of sixty years of parking in the same place.

Rust came from the barn. The dog came at a trot, the old-dog trot that was slower than the young-dog run but that covered the distance, the sixty yards from the barn to the house, the distance that Rust traveled every time a vehicle arrived because the arriving of a vehicle was an event and events required the dog's attention, the attention that was the dog's function, the monitoring of the farm's perimeter and the farm's population.

Sarah knelt. Sarah knelt on the gravel and Rust pressed against her and Sarah put her hands on the dog's head and the dog leaned into the hands and the leaning was the greeting, the physical acknowledgment that the border collie provided and that the human received, the exchange that was not language but was contact, was the skin and the fur and the warmth that passed between them.

"Hey, Rust," Sarah said. "Hey, old man."

The dog knew her. The dog knew her because the dog's nose knew her, the scent of Sarah cataloged in Rust's olfactory memory, the memory that held every person who had been on the Enger place since Rust arrived as a puppy in 2015, the database of scent that included Tom and Ruth and Hector and David and Sarah and Dale Peterson and Karen Peterson and Darrell Kincaid and every UPS driver and every propane delivery man and every person who had set foot on the property, the comprehensive record that the dog maintained without effort, the record that was the dog's gift, the gift of knowing who belonged.

They went inside. The kitchen was the same. The kitchen was always the same because Ruth did not change the kitchen, did not rearrange the kitchen, did not update the kitchen with the renovations that the home-improvement shows recommended and that the women's magazines illustrated and that Ruth did not perform because the kitchen worked, the kitchen served its purpose, the purpose being the preparation of food and the drinking of coffee and the conducting of the farm's business at the ash table where the ledger sat and the calculator sat and the coffee cups left rings on the wood, the rings that were the record of every morning and every decision and every conversation that the table held.

Sarah sat at the table. She sat in her chair, the west side, the chair she occupied from the age of five when she was tall enough to sit at the table without a booster, the chair that was hers the way the blue mug was Hector's, by assignment, by use, by the years of sitting.

Ruth made coffee. She made coffee because coffee was the response, was the answer to the arrival, was the thing that a farm kitchen produced when a person entered, the automatic hospitality that was not hospitality but was function, was the fuel, the liquid that the conversation required the way the engine required diesel.

They sat across from each other. They sat across from each other the way they had sat for twenty-eight years, the mother on the east side and the daughter on the west side and the table between them, the table that was the distance and the connection, the surface that separated and joined, the wooden expanse that held the coffee and the silence and the things they would say and the things they would not say.

"David told me about the offer," Sarah said.

Ruth drank the coffee. She drank from the white mug with the chipped handle, the mug that was her mug, the mug that she had used for eleven years, the mug whose chip was on the left side of the handle and that she turned so the chip faced away from her lip, the small accommodation that she made for the flaw, the adjustment that allowed the mug to continue serving despite the damage.

"I know," Ruth said.

"$4.2 million, Mom."

"I know the number."

"What are you thinking?"

Ruth looked at her daughter. She looked at the Enger blue eyes, the eyes that were Tom's, the eyes that looked back at her with the particular directness that the Enger family possessed, the directness that was not aggressive but was honest, was the looking-at that did not look away, the gaze that said: I am asking and I expect an answer and the answer should be true.

"I'm thinking about the wheat," Ruth said.

Sarah set down her cup. She set it down with the careful placement of a woman who had learned, in the consulting firm, the language of emphasis, the nonverbal communication that consultants practiced -- the deliberate movement, the pause, the arrangement of the body that preceded the important statement, the staging of the physical that supported the verbal.

"Mom, the wheat is not the question."

"The wheat is always the question."

"The question is whether you want to spend the next ten years doing this alone."

Ruth looked out the window. She looked east, the direction she always looked, the direction of Section 12, the direction of the wheat that was heading now, the stems extending, the boot stage transitioning to the heading stage, the heads emerging from the sheaths, the wheat performing the act of revelation that was the heading, the showing of the grain, the plant declaring its intention to produce seed and the seed being the whole point, the entire purpose, the reason for the planting and the tending and the season.

"I'm not alone," Ruth said.

"Hector," Sarah said.

"Hector."

"Hector is fifty-two years old and he makes $52,000 a year and he drives ninety minutes a day to work on a farm that he doesn't own. How long do you think that lasts?"

The question hung. The question hung in the kitchen the way the hail hung in the cloud, suspended, waiting to fall, waiting for the physics of the moment to release it, the question that Ruth had not asked herself because asking it would require her to answer it and the answer was the thing she did not have, the thing the season had not yet provided.

"Hector stays because Hector wants to stay," Ruth said.

"Hector stays because Dad hired him and Hector is loyal to Dad."

"That's the same thing."

"It's not the same thing, Mom. It's not the same thing at all."

They were quiet. The quiet was not the quiet of the barn, the quiet of two people standing in the presence of work. This quiet was the quiet of two people standing in the presence of a disagreement that neither would name, the disagreement about what the farm was -- whether the farm was a life or whether the farm was an asset, whether the farm was the thing you lived inside or the thing you owned, whether the farm's value was the wheat it produced or the $4.2 million it was worth.

Ruth and Sarah disagreed about the farm the way they disagreed about everything, which was with love and without resolution, the love providing the impulse to continue the conversation and the absence of resolution ensuring that the conversation continued, the perpetual discussion that mothers and daughters sustain across years and across miles and across the particular distance that forms when a daughter leaves and a mother stays.

Sarah stayed for the weekend. She stayed in her room, the upstairs room, the room that held her bed and her dresser and the bookshelf that held the books she read in high school -- the novels and the textbooks and the SAT prep book that she studied in this room, in this bed, by this lamp, the studying that carried her to the University of Montana and from the University of Montana to the consulting firm in Denver and from the consulting firm to the salary and the apartment and the life that was not this life, was not the farm life, was the other life, the life that Sarah chose when she chose the studying over the staying.

She walked the fields with Ruth on Saturday morning. She walked Section 12, the section she had walked as a child, the section where Tom taught her to count tillers, the section where she learned the language that Maryann taught Ruth, the generational language, the language of color and tiller count and head size that passed from grandmother to mother to daughter, the language that Sarah still spoke, still understood, still heard when she stood in the wheat and the wind moved the heads and the heads made the sound that was not a whisper and not a rustle but the sound of wheat, the sound that had no word and that needed no word because the sound was its own word, was its own statement, was the wheat saying what the wheat always said: I am here, I am growing, the season continues.

Sarah bent. She pulled a plant. She counted the tillers. Five. She released the plant. She moved forward. She pulled another. Six. She counted with the ease of a person counting in their first language, the language learned before memory, the language that the body knows even when the mind has moved to other languages, to the language of consulting and management and the particular vocabulary of a professional life that did not include tiller counts.

"Good crop," Sarah said.

"Good crop," Ruth said.

They stood in the field. They stood in the wheat and the wheat stood around them and the standing was the thing, the being-present in the wheat, the being-surrounded by the crop, the immersion that was not recreational but was the farm's version of church, the standing in the presence of the thing you have planted and tended and that is growing, the growing being the evidence of the work and the work being the evidence of the life and the life being the thing that Sarah was asking Ruth to consider selling.

Sarah left on Sunday. She left on the afternoon flight, the 4:15 to Denver, the return trip, the crossing back from the farm to the city, from the wheat to the consulting firm, from the mother to the apartment. Ruth drove her to Williston. They drove the route in reverse, west on Route 2, through the oil fields, through the landscape of extraction, to the airport that the oil money built.

"Think about it, Mom," Sarah said. She said it at the gate. She said it with the Enger blue eyes looking directly at Ruth's eyes, the direct gaze, the honest look.

"I'm thinking about it," Ruth said.

"The wheat isn't the answer."

"The wheat is always the answer," Ruth said. "You just have to wait for it to tell you."

Sarah walked through the gate. She walked with the Denver stride, the fast stride, the stride that carried her from the gate to the jet bridge to the seat on the CRJ-200 that would lift her from the prairie and carry her south over Wyoming to the city where she lived the life she chose, the life that was not this life, the life that was the other answer to the question that the land posed to every person born on it: do you stay or do you go?

Ruth drove home. She drove east. She drove toward the farm and the wheat and the evening light that turned the fields to gold and the gold was the answer, the gold was always the answer, the gold that the season produced and that the farmer received and that the receiving was the life, was the whole life, was the thing that $4.2 million could buy but could not replace.