It was after ten that night, and the last hour had consisted of a hundred yawns and a crawl through what I had left in Pop’s file cabinet. Determination drove me to keep going—I was too close to being finished to quit now. So I leaned into the filing cabinet from my office chair with an aching back, putting the files I’d just gone through back where I’d found them and exchanging them for the very last set.
They’d been buried in this drawer since who knew when. I’d thumbed through them before I started, searching for anything that stood out, but it’d seemed like just a whole bunch of the same thing.
But when I landed on a thick file titled Jake stuffed in the very back, my heart stopped.
I held my breath as I swiveled in my chair, my eyes never leaving the folder. I set it down. Opened it.
My eyes moved too quickly to comprehend all they saw, my hungry hands flipping the pages.
Immigration papers flew across my field of vision. Legal letters and court notes. Lawyer invoices. Release paperwork from immigration holding. Copies of the first mortgage. Government forms. And all of them wore Jake’s name alongside Pop’s.
I reached the end of the stack. Flipped it over. Started again, slower.
They weren’t in any sort of order, so I put them in stacks by date. First the release paperwork from ICE—a year after I’d left, Jake had been placed in custody. They’d taken him from the farm, and some legal documents showed that Pop had hired a big immigration lawyer out of San Francisco to get Jake back.
The paperwork applying for the mortgage on the farm was just a few days later.
Legal receipts totaled tens of thousands—near two hundred thousand, I gathered from some sloppy, scribbled math I jotted on the back of the folder.
I sat back in my seat, staring at the number.
Pop had mortgaged the farm for Jake.
They’d taken Jake, and Pop fought for him with every penny he had. All of his equity. The safety of the farm. His legacy and his life’s work.
He’d put all his money on the boy he barely knew and for no other reason than because it was the right thing to do.
And the farm had never recovered.
My throat closed up, my nose stinging and vision blurry. All this time, I’d thought Jake was just being stubborn. That he didn’t want me here because I was an outsider, that he didn’t want change because it made him uncomfortable. And while all that might be true, there was a bigger reason, a reason beyond me.
This farm’s debt was his, and he’d carried the weight of that burden for so long, you could see the toll it took on him once you knew what you were looking for.
Everything slid into focus like I’d twisted a telescope lens. I replayed fights, relived conversations fresh as daylight. No one had told me. And why would they have? I was seventeen—Pop wouldn’t have put the weight of the farm’s finances on me at that age. He wouldn’t have troubled me with the news that he’d sponsored Jake’s immigration, knowing it would have worried me, especially when coupled with the questions I’d surely ask about money. I would have come home the second I was able if I’d known. And he’d known that too.
Jake’s silence was warranted. I imagined that with the state of our finances, he carried an undue share of responsibility and shame, and I wondered just how he’d punished himself for it over the years. Especially now, with Pop gone and me here. Invading. Spending what little money we had on a whim, changing things without realizing what I was doing, without understanding how I was hurting us.
Hurting him.
I scooped up the papers and slapped them into the file, clutching it to my chest as I hurried out of the office. I slipped my feet into my rain boots with my heart beating so hard, the file trembled gently from the rhythm.
The screen door slapped the frame behind me, but I was already down the stairs and on a path straight for Jake’s house.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I didn’t know, my mind echoed with every set of footsteps across the yard and up to his door. My knuckles rapped sharp on his screen door. I swiped tears from my cheeks, looking greedily into his living room for any sign of him.
Bowie barked, the sound of his nails slipping on the hardwood growing louder as he approached.
“Slow down, buddy,” Jake said on a chuckle from somewhere beyond my vision.
He was smiling down at Bowie when he came into view. But when he looked up and found me, he stopped, his smile falling. I didn’t care about his flat lips or any of the sharpening squares of him at the sight of me. It didn’t matter. Because now I knew.
Nothing was what I’d thought it was.
Slowly, he started toward me.
“What do you need?” he asked. It wasn’t quite rude. It wasn’t friendly, either.
“Can I come in?”
He glanced at the bundle of papers clutched in my arms. “What’s that?”
“Please, can I come in?” I couldn’t seem to say anything more, my voice wavering. My brain had devolved to single-thought processing.
Jake’s lips went from flat to turned down just a little. But he pushed open the door and held it so I could enter.
I flew through the threshold and past him, whirling around as soon as I was inside.
Puzzled, he turned to face me. “What the hell’s gotten into you—”
“I found the papers,” I blurted.
“What papers?”
I shoved the folder into his chest—if I spoke, I’d burst into tears.
He looked down. Took them. Angled them out for inspection. Understanding hit him.
When he met my gaze, his eyes churned with sadness, regret. Pain. “Where did you find this?” he asked quietly.
“Pop’s office.”
Silence. Then, “So now you know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Ed tell me?”
“That the farm’s debt was because of me? I asked Ed not to tell you—it’s not his job anyway. But I figured you’d find out sooner or later.”
I frowned. “They came for you. Pop helped you. You—”
“I ruined the farm.”
“No—”
“Yes,” he shot, instantly furious and arching over me. “All of this is my fault. He should have just let them send me away, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let it go, said the farm would bounce back. It never did, so he took out the second mortgage. And now it’s up to me to fix it.”
“Not you. Us.”
A dry laugh. “All you’ve done is put us in the hole. Sure, you’re making it up, but there’s no getting this back.” He held up the file before slapping it on the table near the door.
“All this time, and I had no idea,” I said with an air of wonder, unfazed. “I would have done everything differently if I’d known.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
He brushed past me, but I grabbed him by the arm. He stopped.
“Jake, please,” I begged gently. “Please don’t walk away.”
His nostrils flared when he looked down at me, but his eyes still broiled with feeling he wouldn’t acknowledge. I wondered how long he’d been ignoring it. His whole life maybe.
“I’m not here to blame you for anything—I don’t. You trying to stop Pop from helping you was useless, and we both know it. I’m not upset with you or with Pop … I’m proud of him. He saved you, Jake.”