Diz avoided personal conversation, but she often expounded on the economics of dairy farming. Brassard’s farm operated on a razor’s edge where the costs of operations intersected income from milk sales. Brassard had bought the current equipment in the 1990s to increase production and meet federally mandated dairy hygiene standards. Diz didn’t like the parlor design, because there was no splash guard and runnel, so if the cows urinated or shat it went onto the floor or into the pit. But this setup was the best their finances could manage.
I was appalled when Diz told me they were still paying off the loans Brassard had taken out back then. As he was for the Deere and the truck and the bulk milk storage tank and an extension of the shed in 1998, which had allowed them to take on another twenty cows.
Like every other small farmer, they were perpetually trying to find the elusive sweet spot of milk production, where sales offset debt enough to leave some net income. When milk prices are up, this works. When prices fall, farmers can lose money on every gallon they produce. They have no choice but to keep producing, because the cows need to be milked and supply contracts have to be honored. Brassard had lost almost ninety thousand dollars the year before I came, because milk prices were so low.
No wonder Will had taken up a different line of work and swore he’d never work on the farm.
Last year’s loss explained why they had sold me my land, and when Diz told me this, I realized just how seriously my default had put them at risk. I was appalled, horrified, to understand what I had done.
To her credit, though, Diz explained all this without directing her rancor toward me. She was angry at “the system.” As she saw it, they were personally, anonymously—and thanklessly—putting that milk on America’s tables at direct expense to themselves.
She told me this at five in the afternoon, when we were about half an hour into the milking routine. She started the vacuum, affixed the next four cups, then leaned back and said, “All I can say is, thank God for Earnest.”
“How so?”
She slumped, despairing of me. “Take a wild guess, sweetheart.”
I stared stupidly at her.
She tipped her head toward the holding area door to remind me to get the next group of cows moving. “Paid your bail.” She watched me process that. “Put up ten K to keep us afloat while you paid us off with labor. We were up against the wall. Had to make a balloon payment on a revolving credit line, and it was either take Earnest’s money or default and screw ourselves up the be-hind.”
We worked for another half hour before I could find any words: “You know I’m sorry, Diz, right? I really want you to know how sorry I am.”
“Not sorry enough yet, but I’ll make sure you get there.”
“Why would Earnest … I mean …”
“Saint Earnest,” she said to the next claw. “Another ten of him, the world wouldn’t be in such a mess.”
Chapter 19
Nov. 6
Observations of late fall: The fields are dark brown for a time, but then comes a morning when they’re hazed over gray with a surface frost—the night’s dew, frozen. As the sun rises, later and later, the shadows of the hills stretch farther across the fields, and the soil stays white-gray in the shade while the sunlit areas turn brown again, a distinct melt line.
The forested hills turn gray-brown except where, suddenly, clumps of pine and fir appear, dark green, almost black, as if they’d sneaked in from somewhere else or just now stood up from the earth.
The mud in the paddock and driveway crusts over with ice, so that when you walk on it your boot crunches through to the taffy-like partially frozen soil beneath. Dressing for your day takes longer as you layer things on under your coveralls; Brassard warns you not to put on your long johns until January, or you’ll get used to them and have no further recourse when the serious cold hits. Your exhaled breath turns dazzlingly bright when you’re working in the sun. On windless days, the Brassards’ chimney releases a perfectly vertical stream of white smoke, and the delicious smell of burning hardwood fills the barnyard. One morning your Toyota won’t start and you put a new battery on the list of other purchases to be made on the next town run.
A fox, bright rust red against the gray forest, trots purposefully along the edge of the pasture.
More chainsaws in the far distance: getting up the last of the firewood. Deer-hunting season starts, gunshots echo in the hills. You wear a fluorescent-orange stocking cap even when working in the barn or close to the house. Diz replaces Bob’s collar with a neckerchief of the same color.
A late and straggly V of geese angles across the sky, changes direction for a time, then reorients with more confidence. Later a solitary goose flaps uncertainly, first this way, then that, honking lost and mournful, and you feel a sudden pang in your chest: that’s me.
Chapter 20
Life improved as the tension ratcheted down between Diz and me. I had to ask myself how I would have treated someone who had put me in such jeopardy, had forced my husband to prevail upon the charity of his old friend. And I had to admit, I probably wouldn’t have done any better than Diz. I doubted that my capacity to forgive, or to handle sudden extreme pressure with grace, was any greater than hers.
And looking back at what I’ve written, I realize I’ve painted an incomplete portrait of Diz and Brassard. Diz is only snarly, Brassard bland and rather absent. To be fair to them and honest about my own feelings, I should round out the picture.
Unlike my time with Earnest, my interactions with
