The Buyer Sent A Release Bearing A Signature I Had Never Given

"How many are left dry?" I asked.

Warren paused. "Who's that?"

"Sheng Moua. The owner."

"I purchased stock from Alder Bend."

"You paid a deposit. I never approved a sale. How many?"

"Twenty-eight. We planted eight in separate cells. Standard trial."

I wrote those numbers on the return sheet. My hand stayed steady. At work, panic had never improved a count.

"No more planting," I said. "Keep every label. Keep the soil and the tray."

"Send the documents," he told Leanne. "I have documents too."

Gavin stepped toward the phone.

"Warren, we can talk privately."

Leanne ended the call before he could touch it.

"You will send him nothing without copying me," she said.

I took our tote home. Pilar walked me to my car, carrying the other end like it held glass.

Outside, wind swept grit across the parking lot. Horsetooth's ridge stood dark beneath the clouds. Two shoppers watched us from a pickup, then looked away.

"I'm sorry I didn't say more at the table," Pilar said.

"You said my name. You kept the list. That mattered."

She pulled a loose sheet from her apron.

"He made me initial the delivery. I kept a copy because the grower cards were missing."

It was Thursday's pickup record. Beside accession 0187 she had written: Original credit requested. Manager to supply.

Gavin's initials sat below that note.

"May I copy this?" I asked.

"Please do."

At home, I set the tote on my kitchen table and unlocked the small steel cabinet beneath the window. My accession register filled two green binders. Each page told a seed's history: where it came from, when it was harvested, how it had tested, who could approve its use.

An accession number followed a seed lot. It was not a fancy name for a variety. Two envelopes could hold the same kind of bean and still have different histories.

That was the part Gavin had missed.

The register held mistakes too. When I corrected an entry, I drew one line through the old words, dated it, and wrote the reason beside it. Nothing vanished under a sticker. On Margo's page, even the change in envelope paper had its own note.

I ran my finger beneath the date of that moisture test. Then I copied the page for her. She had given us seed from six good years of work. She deserved to know exactly what had happened to it.

He saw plain packets. I saw records that could be followed backward.

I checked the returned seals before moving the packets into dry storage. Then I opened the page for 0187.

Early Porch Bean. Harvested September. Thirty-six selected beans. Four from each of nine healthy plants. Previous test: eleven seedlings from twelve seeds drawn from the same harvest.

Attached was my personal loan sheet, stating that title stayed with me. No transfer, trial, or sale without my written consent.

Gavin had signed that sheet too.

My mother had taught me to save the strongest seed. My first supervisor had taught me to save the paper that explained it.

That afternoon, I scanned both.

June came over with soup. She read while I checked the twenty-three entries against their donor forms.

"Should we call everyone tonight?" she asked.

"With facts. Not guesses."

We drafted a short notice. All exchange-owned lots were back, with seals intact. My personal bean accession remained away. Six reservations had been taken without our release. The center had agreed to make refunds.

June sent the notice from the board's address. She attached the signed return count.

At five, Warren called me directly.

"I don't want a public fight," he said.

"Then return my property."

"I need my deposit back first."

"That money never came to me."

"It came out of my account."

"I understand. That does not make my beans payment for his debt."

He breathed into the phone for a moment.

"I'm not moving anything tonight. I'll send my release."

"Send the whole file."

"You think I bought stolen goods?"

"I think you need to read the limits on what he could sell."

His email arrived while June washed the soup bowls.

The first attachment promised sole commercial access to Early Porch parent stock for five years. Gavin had signed for the garden center. Warren had signed for Brindle Row.

The second attachment was headed Owner Release.

My name sat at the bottom in my own slanted handwriting.

For a moment, the kitchen went quiet enough that I heard the furnace click.

June came beside me.

"Did you sign that?"

"No."

I opened the delivery sheet from Monday. My signature had crossed a printed line, catching the bottom of the letter in Delivery.

On Warren's release, the same small piece of that printed letter hung beneath my name.

Someone had copied my signature, and had carried part of the old page with it.