“I know.”
The Farmer looked toward the southern horizon.
Somewhere beyond the dark fields, the Farm Woman’s greenhouse lights glowed faintly.
He hated that he was thinking about her.
He hated more that he could hear her voice.
Depends how often you throw the water away.
The Farm Woman barely slept.
Groundwater suspension did not mean her system became effortless.
Aquaponics depended on balance.
Fish consumed oxygen.
Bacteria consumed oxygen.
Plants consumed water.
Heat increased evaporation.
If a pump stopped, the fish could suffocate.
If biofiltration failed, ammonia could rise.
If the greenhouse overheated, plants could collapse despite available water.
Her farm had traded one set of risks for another.
At 2:17 a.m., an alarm sounded beside her bed.
Low dissolved oxygen.
She was in boots within two minutes.
The eastern aeration pump had tripped.
She reset it.
Nothing.
Backup compressor.
Started.
Air returned to the tanks.
The tilapia slowed their surface gulping.
The Farm Woman sat on an overturned bucket at three in the morning, listening to bubbles.
Survival was not magic.
It was maintenance.
At sunrise, trucks began arriving at neighboring farms.
Water tankers.
The county had not banned purchased surface water from outside the basin.
But hauling enough water for conventional acreage was brutally expensive.
One tanker held around six thousand gallons.
A vegetable field could consume many times that in a day.
The math destroyed optimism quickly.
The Farmer hired six trucks.
By afternoon he understood the problem.
He could save high-value acreage.
Not everything.
He stood beside his manager looking at a map.
“Block A tomatoes.”
“Must save.”
“Peppers?”
“Save west half.”
“Melons?”
The manager hesitated.
“Probably let them go.”
The Farmer looked up.
“Thirty acres.”
“I know.”
He felt physically sick.
“What about the young orchard?”
“Trees get priority after vegetables.”
“Everything else?”
The manager looked toward him.
“You need to choose.”
Farmers made decisions like that during disasters.
People who imagined agriculture as romance rarely saw the arithmetic.
You did not always save the crop.
Sometimes you decided what was worth enough to receive water.
The Farmer marked red lines on the map.
By evening, thirty-eight acres were officially abandoned.
He drove past the Farm Woman’s property on the way home.
The greenhouse fans turned steadily.
No tanker trucks.
No panic.
He slowed.
Then kept driving.
Day two became worse.
Temperatures reached 108 degrees.
Wind pulled moisture from exposed soil.
Plants wilted before noon.
The county extension office sent warnings.
Do not over-irrigate surviving blocks in panic.
Prioritize young perennial crops.
Shade sensitive seedlings.
Delay planting.
Harvest market-ready produce early.
Every recommendation translated into labor and money.
The Farm Woman harvested tomatoes at dawn.
Her fish system remained stable.
Water level dropped slightly through evapotranspiration.
She replaced losses from the cistern.
The rainwater had been captured months earlier from greenhouse roofs during winter and spring storms.
People had laughed at that too.
Arizona rain was too inconsistent, they said.
She agreed.
That was why she stored as much as possible when it came.