My Niece Brought An Eviction Notice Into The Grafting House

Shirin laid the will across my cutting board, right over a row of green buds.

“You have until Friday, Uncle Farhad.”

I moved the buds onto a damp cloth before I read her paper. Outside, rain ticked on the grafting house roof. It was March in Bloomington, and the red clay by the loading gate had turned to paste.

“Until Friday for what?”

“To clear this building. The collectors need a clean packing space.”

I had worked in that room for forty years. I knew which pane leaked and which bench stayed warm after sunset. My sister Leila had been dead for nineteen days.

I was a lean Iranian American man of sixty-three, with brown skin, a bent nose, and silver hair that curled over my ears.

My job was fruit-tree propagation. I took one good tree and helped it become many. I tied a different colored thread around each experimental graft, so I could follow its growth without mixing up my notes.

That morning, yellow thread meant an early graft of our persimmon called Mill Creek Gold. Purple meant a late trial on hardy rootstock.

Shirin lifted her coat away from my stool.

My niece Shirin had smooth brown skin, a sharp black bob, and a cream coat with gold buttons that never seemed to catch dirt.

She was thirty-eight, Iranian American, and proud of every room she had learned to enter. She ran a small events business in Indianapolis. At family dinners, she told us what her invitations cost.

“You should have made plans,” she said.

“I did.”

“Saving jars of coins doesn't count.”

I looked at the paper. It named her as the person who would receive the nursery, its equipment, and all its living stock. The last sheet held my sister's signature.

I had seen Leila sign hundreds of plant health forms. That was her hand.

“Has a judge accepted this?” I asked.

“My application is filed. The hearing is next Thursday. There's no reason to delay getting the property ready.”

“There are trees in the field.”

“Which is why I need your records.”

She held out her hand.

I shut my notebook.

“Those are my trial notes.”

“They were made on her property.”

“So was your fifth birthday cake.”

She gave me the thin smile she used when a server brought the wrong glass.

“I don't want to make this ugly. There's $2,000 for you if the building is empty on time.”

“Keep it.”

Her eyes softened in a way that hurt more than her smile.

“Pride won't pay your rent.”

I had paid off my little house west of town twelve years earlier. My retirement account held $286,400 at its last statement. I had never discussed either fact at Leila's table. Money made Shirin speak louder, and I liked hearing my sister.

But neither my house nor my savings could keep these trees from leaving.

I asked to copy the will.

“You can photograph it,” she said. “Don't take it apart.”

I took pictures of every page, including the backs. The final sheet had a small gray crescent near the signature. Leila had once set a wet pot on a stack of papers. I remembered being scolded for laughing.

Then I noticed the date.

“This says 2019.”

“She never changed it.”

I touched the small brass key on my ring. It opened the old blue valve box behind the pump shed.

The previous October, Leila had pressed it into my palm.

“If someone tells you growing things is worth nothing,” she had said, “ask Bernard what he keeps dry.”

I had thought she meant the irrigation maps. She had been tired that day. I had let her stop talking.

Now Shirin slid another page toward me.

“Sign this acknowledgment. It only says you've been informed.”

It also said I claimed no interest in the land, buildings, or plant stock.

“No.”

“Then I'll note that you refused.”

“Use a pen that works.”

She left without taking the $2,000 check from her purse.

I stood still until her car passed the gate. Then I checked the field ledger.

Thirty-two mother trees stood on our five acres. Some had taken twenty years to prove themselves. Local growers bought scion wood, the small cuttings we joined to their rootstock. They could not get those same trees from a shelf.

Three ledger sleeves were empty.

On the floor beneath Leila's desk, I found a carbon receipt. It listed eighteen mother trees, including Mill Creek Gold.

Total price: $48,000. Deposit paid: $14,400.

Collection: Friday, eight in the morning.

I called Bernard Keene. He listened without a sound.

“She says the will gives her everything,” I told him.

“Bring the key,” he said.

“What key?”

“The one your sister knew you'd keep.”