6. Ethan

"You're such a shit-kicking clodhopper."My brother Alex throws a napkin at me along with the name calling.

Gran swats at my brother with a wooden spoon as she stirs a pot of chicken noodle soup on the stove. "Alexander Bedd, don't you use that language in my house. I'll wash your mouth out with soap." She's been cooking since our meeting with Lia earlier today. I'm sure she posted videos about it, too. I guess it's as good a distraction as anything else.

My brother takes issue with the strawberry plan, not because he doesn't like the idea per se, but because he's been suggesting diversification, along with Samuel, for years now. If I had to guess, and I do because we never discussed it, Alex took more issue with being ignored and silenced than he did with the specific ideas getting rejected.

I don't blame him for not sticking around a place where he felt no agency. Alex eventually gave up arguing with us and started working for another operation in town, but Samuel kept pecking at Granddad about different farming practices in between all his research projects at farm college.

That's what Gran calls Samuel's Ivy League academic program. I'm aware that agricultural science is a valid field of research. I'm also aware that I've been backing up my grandfather for a decade, ever since I fully committed to Bedd Fellows Farm being my life work. And I've played right along, essentially telling Alex to mind his business, and let the adults do the thinking.

I sigh. No wonder he's irritated any time he sees me.

Granddad raised us along with the soybeans, and I never wanted to stray from his vision for our land. How could I ever go against the man who took us in, postponed his own retirement? His plan kept this place alive. I can admit now that I should have listened to my brothers when they sensed a change in the wind. After all, there had to have been a time when Granddad did something new—he wasn't always exporting the crops to Asia. Or, at any rate, his father certainly wasn't always doing that.

Alex refuses to apologize, and I refuse to get riled up about him calling me names. I know what I am. I'm what I always set out to be—a man who takes care of his land and his family.

Our grandparents took us in after our parents died, but they were already getting up there in age at that point. I've always taken on more than a big brother role with the four of them. Nevertheless, I always imagined my family would look a little different at this point in my life.

My siblings are grown now, and I don't exactly have the wife and kids I thought I would by this point. I've got a grandmother to take care of, an elderly sheep to mind, and apparently a heap of debt to overcome.

"Now look," I state above the din. Only Colleen actually glances my way when I say that. Samuel and Jackson have devolved into shoving one another and Gran is getting more serious about swatting them with her spoon. Colleen follows my eye to the ruckus in the corner and she puts two fingers in her mouth, letting loose a whistle that has Alex's and Samuel's dogs barking from outside.

The room goes quiet. "Thank you, sis." She nods. "As I was saying, I know I haven't exactly been open to change before now. Obviously, there are some extenuating circumstances. I see that we need to make changes, and of the options on the table, I agree with Lia that adding in a strawberry crop seems like the best way forward."

Samuel sinks into a chair next to me, rubbing his shoulder from where he and Jack were fighting. "It really pisses me off that you're open to these ideas from Lia Thorne, who left you heartbroken and a hot mess, but when your own brothers pleaded with you to just convince Grandad to listen to us talk, you wouldn't intervene."

I look at my grandmother, who has ignored the mild cuss from Samuel as she dumps corn kernels into her soup pot. "I'm not going to apologize for that a third time, Samuel. I'm just asking if you are on board to help me prepare for a spring planting or if I need to hire out. With money we don't have."

"You want my help, or you want my labor?" Samuel glares. "Because I've got plenty of suggestions for growing strawberries as a cash crop. You could visit the Cooperative Extension any day of the week for a customized plan for how to proceed."

"I've got enough ideas coming at me from Lia. You know darn well I need the manpower."

"You want me to take a leave of absence from my own paid work to help you here? I have bills to pay too, jackass."

"Enough of that, Samuel Bedd!"

"Sorry, Gran."

The shouting resumes until Gran bangs a ladle against the pot and everyone files over to the stove for soup. It's hard to argue with a mouth full of homemade noodles and perfectly-flavored broth, so we eat in silence until we've made a significant dent in our dinner.

Finally, Colleen folds her napkin neatly and sets it on the table beside her empty bowl. She steeples her fingers and looks at me seriously. "Ethan, you know we are all on board to do what we can for the farm. Despite what we feel about your breakup with Lia, we know she's a professional whose opinion we can trust." She holds up a hand to silence an incoming argument from Alex, who continues angrily shoving soup into his face. "But." She points an index finger at me. "You need to decide the structure of this place going forward. If you're going to run the farm, you need to do that. You need a business plan, employees, a plan for seasonal hires, whatever. You're going to need to manage it like a business, or this will happen all over again."

She leans back in her seat and her words settle around the room. Gran grunts, which I interpret as her saying that our grandfather never made things like a business plan and only outsourced the bare minimum in terms of seasonal temps and number crunching. Which … landed us here. Staring down a foreclosure notice before he's cold in the ground.

I'm not sure what to say to Colleen and my siblings. It takes me a long time to form my thoughts into words on a good day, and this one has been a hailstorm of emotions. Colleen waves a hand. "As you know, I'm a teacher, and I happen to be amazing at making lesson plans. I can volunteer to whip up a calendar and to-do lists for the strawberry stuff, but I need help knowing what the to-do items are and when they need to be done, and by whom."

"Whom." Jackson repeats this with a British accent and rolls his eyes.

"Whom," Samuel echoes, sticking his pinky finger out with an imaginary cup of tea.

"Whom," mutters Alex, tipping an imaginary top hat.

The callback from our childhood rolls over me with an ache. And then Jackson keeps on talking. "It's a farm. We know how to plant shit on a farm, Colleen. We've been doing it our whole lives."

"Okay, I'm out." She stands in a rush, her chair clattering against the wall behind her as she stalks toward the coat hook. She's gone before Gran can yell at her to stay and I hear the sound of her car spinning up gravel as she drives too fast down the lane toward town.

"Where do you think she's going?" Alex looks out the windows as if he can see her in the dark.

"No idea," I say. "But I'm glad she's actually leaving the house." I stand, more slowly and taking care with my chair, and start to gather empty bowls and spoons from the table. I'm looking forward to my own home down the lane a bit. It's more of a cabin, I suppose, but it's mine and I built it myself. Nobody goes in there. Nobody makes noise while I'm trying to think. Gran calls it my fortress of solitude. After an hour arguing with my siblings, I'm craving the feel of my own sheets.

My brothers each rise to help put away the food and wash up as Gran gets herself a cup of tea and settles into her rocking chair by the wood stove, knitting needles clacking. I smile at the neatly stacked logs I brought in. I like that she can use them to find comfort for herself amidst all this upheaval.

A few minutes later, I'm done washing bowls and ready to head out when Jackson stops me with a hand on my arm. "Stay for a night cap?"

I shake my head.

Sam and Alex are already back in their seats and Jackson stretches to the cupboard above the fridge, peering into the tiny space. "Found it." He pulls out the cheap, terrible whiskey that Grandad drank a few times a year. "Come on, Ethan. Let's toast to new ways of doing things." I hesitate, not wanting the particular brand of hangover that comes with cheap whiskey. Jackson rolls his eyes. "I'm flying home tomorrow. Hang out with me already."

Samuel's eyes bore into me. "I'm heading back to work tomorrow, too. You're on your own after this."

Alex shakes his head. "Nah. He's got Colleen here to help." I don't like how my brothers laugh at that remark, but I also don't open my mouth to stick up for her. I watch as each of my brothers takes a pull straight from the bottle. Less of a toast than a mournful, sloppy blitz if you ask me, which none of them did.

Jackson holds the bottle by the neck, shaking it at me. "To strawberries," he says. "Come on, Ethan."

I take the bottle from him and pour a sip into my mouth. It burns the hairs in my nose and I cough. I chase the whiskey with Samuel's glass of water. I should leave, but I sit down with my brothers. I'm trying to get along with them better. When they hand me the bottle again, I drink it slowly.

I stare at my brothers, who have basically become strangers, and I've had just enough whiskey to ask the question that's been burning in my belly since Lionel read the will. "Jackson." I press my palms to the table. "Why aren't you giving us the money?"

We all stare at him. The only sound in the kitchen is Gran's old clock ticking louder than ever as Jackson takes another pull from the whiskey bottle. "I would if I could. You have to know that." He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sighs. "I told you, I've got no liquidity. You have no idea…"

Samuel grunts. "You're right. We have no idea what it's like to have no money."

Alex throws a napkin at him and the three of them start chugging whiskey and calling each other names. By the time I remember that Jackson didn't really answer the question, I'm too drunk to make him elaborate.