For two weeks, they debated.
Accountant.
Attorney.
Banker.
Employees.
Family.
Calvin heard somehow.
Of course.
He came one evening.
“You selling?”
“Maybe.”
Calvin nodded.
“Good price?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you look miserable?”
Ethan laughed.
“You ever think you’d become the person I discuss business with?”
“No.”
“Terrible development.”
They stood near the goat pen.
Same place where years earlier Calvin threw the pumpkin.
Calvin leaned on the fence.
“What are you afraid of?”
Ethan thought.
“Regret.”
“Useful.”
“Very.”
Calvin looked toward the fields.
“You know what I thought when you started this?”
“That I was broke.”
“You were.”
“Fair.”
“I thought you were pretending necessity was innovation.”
Ethan nodded.
“Sometimes I was.”
Calvin looked at him.
“That’s not an insult?”
“No.”
“Necessity started it.”
Calvin continued.
“Then I thought if it worked, you’d scale until this place became some giant operation.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because bigger isn’t automatically better.”
Calvin smiled.
“Took me fifty years to learn that.”
Ethan looked toward him.
“So what would you do?”
“With three million?”
“Yes.”
Calvin laughed.
“Disappear.”
“Helpful.”
“Florida.”
“I hate Florida.”
“Then don’t ask me.”
They laughed.
Ethan eventually rejected the full acquisition.
Grace nearly killed him.
Then he presented another plan.
License the brand regionally.
Sell distribution rights for specific products.
Keep farm ownership.
Keep quality control.
Receive enough capital to eliminate most debt and expand employee ownership.
Grace read everything twice.
“This could work.”
“Maybe.”
“You say maybe too much.”
“Occupational habit.”
The company negotiated.
Six months.
Lawyers.
Revisions.
Eventually agreement.
Not three-point-two million.
Less.
But the farm remained theirs.
That mattered.
Ten years after the pumpkin incident, Calvin retired.
His son took over Reed Farm.
Before the retirement auction, Calvin arrived at Miller’s carrying something.
A pumpkin.
Ethan stared.
“No.”
Calvin put it on the office desk.
Perfect pumpkin.
Orange.
Clean.
“What is this?”
“Your anniversary.”
“For?”
“The day I threw one at your feet.”
Ethan laughed.
“You remember the date?”
“No.”
“Grace does.”
Of course she did.
Calvin sat.
“I owe you an apology.”
Ethan stopped smiling.
“You already changed.”