“What?”
“Those eighty bales you purchased were part of our winter feed. Dwayne sold them without telling me.”
Arlen frowned deeply.
“He said you were getting out of cattle.”
“I know he did.”
“He told me you wanted the field cleared so you could start selling things off.”
I shook my head.
“That was never my decision.”
Arlen stared down at his plate.
I continued carefully.
“I’m not blaming you. You had no reason to think Tom’s brother wasn’t acting with my permission.”
He looked up again.
“Karen, I had no idea.”
“I believe you.”
I swallowed hard.
“But there’s something else I wanted you to know.”
My voice began to shake.
“Those bales came from the final field Tom ever harvested.”
Arlen went completely still.
“He cut it the Monday before he died. I found his notebook yesterday. He’d written that the harvest was enough to feed our cattle through winter.”
