Page 5 of Buried Roots

He stops and looks at me. Tapping his dimpled chin, he says, “I know the tree, but nothing comes to mind about a memorial, sorry.”

I bat a hand and whisk out a nervous laugh. “No worries. Just caught my eye.”

Roy waves to a woman in boots and bib overalls approaching, and she’s carrying a notebook. “There’s Frankie. She’s your neighbor, and she knows what’s going on here a lot better than I do.”

“Afternoon,” she says gruffly, without a smile. She measures me out of steely eyes that are more gray than blue.

I approach her and extend my hand. “I’m Willow. Nice to meet you, Frankie.”

“Same.” She briskly returns the shake, and the rough calluses on her palms remind me of my Pops.

Roy says, “Frankie’s been kind enough to take time away from her own farm and family to care for this place while it sat in probate.”

I study her, a simple yet pretty woman, taller with heart-shaped lips and a jagged scar that runs along her chin. She looks to be in her late forties and fit enough to take care of the place. I nod. “Thank you—I’m sure that wasn’t easy.”

“We do what we can around here. The animals aren’t gonna feed themselves.”

“Would you mind getting Willow up to speed, Frankie?” Roy asks. “As soon as we finish up?”

“Of course.”

As Roy talks me through the rest of the paperwork, I discover there’s no cash in the estate—the little that Bo had was left to Frankie to pay for the transition period. So, I have zero liquidity to update the place before selling it. Which is for the best, I remind myself, because I absolutely cannot stay.

I’ve landed the most critical account of my career—Klein Homes, an influential New York building firm. They purchased a vacant apartment complex in Brooklyn and subcontracted my company, RevitaHome Contractors. We’re the experts on restoration, and they need our help with all two-hundred luxury apartments. And even after collecting a third of the payment upfront, it’s maxed out my borrowing limits. But I need it to save my business. Right now, I’m over leveraged with the skyrocketing prices of materials.

I have to get back to New York and the Klein account ASAP.

I sign on the dotted lines, then Frankie and I bid Roy goodbye from the front porch.

After he pulls away, a flash of red on the back road catches my eye, and I realize it’s a truck creeping by. The windows are down, and the driver, a woman wearing a red polka-dotted dress and her salt and pepper hair in a poofy bun, gawks at us.

“Mind your business, Ms. Mary Louise!” Frankie calls out, then looks at me. “Don’t pay her any never mind. She can’t stop herself from sticking her nose where it don’t belong.”

“Afternoon, Frankie, ya old grump!” Mary Louise yells back with an exaggerated smile and wave.

I return the wave and smile, not sure what to do.

When the truck disappears down the road, Frankie says, “Let’s get started.”

“Sure. I’m just gonna grab my tablet to take notes,” I say before snatching it from the car. As we walk to the pasture, my heels sink with every step, and I scribble, “New shoes” on my tablet.

“You from up North?” Frankie asks.

I fight to keep up with her brisk pace. “New York City. How’d you know?”

“You pronounce your ‘e’s like ‘a’s.” She opens the gate, and five goats rush over. Roy said there were six—where’s the last one?

Frankie gives them each a scrub between the horns. “Cool your jets. It ain’t feeding time—you know that, now.”

The tiniest one appears, clearly a baby, and stuffs his nose into my hand. There’s the sixth. “Hi, there, little goat.” This clearly encourages him because he continues to nuzzle me… all over my silk blouse. “Oh, no. Not the shirt.” Although it’s ripped now, anyway. Who cares?

He bleats as if to tell me off.

I meet his bright blue eyes with odd rectangular pupils in a stare off, trying to show him who’s boss. But I’m finding it difficult to play hard ass with this creature that has ears like my favorite gray Angora sweater and a tongue that hangs out sideways.

Frankie opens her notebook and unclips a pen. Pointing the tip at the bulleted items, she looks at me and says, “You have three farmhands whom you’ll meet tomorrow when they arrive at dawn. They manage the big stuff, like running the combines and collecting the bales of hay. It’s summertime, which means you’re gonna need to stay on top of pest control. It’s your job to fill the troughs for the goats and the horses. The stables need cleaning weekly. And you’ve got a foal on the way, arriving any minute. You need to have the vet come by—“

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, trying to process her words. My brain’s so fried, it’s practically smoking. “I don’t know how to do any of these things.”

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