We Counted The Living Stock Beneath The Shed's Silent Lights

Anika called a plumber before she opened her tool bag again.

"I can make the electrical side safe," she told me. "Gus needs to fix that split. Then we test the loop together."

I wrote both names on the work log required by the order.

Fletcher watched from the doorway.

"You're running up bills."

"You can read the invoices," I said.

I wanted him away from my tanks. The court order allowed him to observe, so I gave him a chair near the door and kept working.

There were things I could still control.

Clean hands. Clean tools. A count done twice.

Anika took pictures while I called out each tank number. Then we changed places and checked the count again. She wanted to write down what she thought of Fletcher's choices. I pointed to the column headed Observed.

"Save the rest for the truck," I said.

She drew a long breath and wrote, Heat Controls Off.

Outside, the Vinalhaven ferry moved past the pilings. I could hear its engine through the wall, a deep, steady sound. Boats were still keeping schedules. People were still getting home. I held on to that while I worked through our stock sheets.

The shelf cards showed forty spools missing. Then I found a covered sorting tray on the packing bench. Twenty-four more lay inside, out of water, beside the frosted north window.

"Why are these here?" I asked.

"I was sorting them by size."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

I lifted the cover. Some seed string had dried against the rods. A thin crust of ice edged the wet cloth underneath.

Anika turned toward Fletcher.

"They had tanks. Full tanks. You took them out?"

"They ship out of water."

"In lined boxes, cool and damp, on a planned trip," I said. "Not beside a freezing window overnight."

I stopped there. I needed a record, not another argument.

I photographed the tray, marked it for separate checks, and returned the spools to clean seawater. I did not call them dead yet.

The remaining ninety-six were still underwater. I checked samples under the nursery microscope. The little brown blades were attached. That was a start, but I needed more than one good look before promising them to anyone.

Gus arrived with a bucket of fittings and snow in his beard.

He and Anika worked at the north wall while I called the two growers named in court.

Cora Pike answered first.

"He said you quit," she told me.

"I didn't. Have you opened your box?"

"It's sitting in our unheated bait shed. He said the cold was good."

I closed my eyes.

"Please bring it here. Keep the liner shut for now. I'll explain when you arrive."

Daniel Winn had already opened his. Fletcher had packed the rods with loose paper. There was no damp wrap around the seed string.

"Can I still use it?" Daniel asked.

"I can't tell you that without checking it."

"I paid $2,400."

"Save the receipt."

Each grower had sent $2,400 straight to Fletcher. I asked them to send copies to Ruth. I promised care and honest answers, not money I had not received.

By dusk, the loop held pressure. Anika brought the controls back in stages while Gus watched each joint.

The first hum made me lean against the packing table.

"Sit," Anika said.

"I'm fine."

"Sit while being fine."

She pushed the chair toward me with one boot. Fletcher had left without a word when the growers' receipts arrived on my phone.

Our repair estimate came to $2,740: $940 in parts and $1,800 in labor between them. Both agreed to itemize their work. Neither offered to hide hours or pad them.

"Waste costs enough without making numbers up," Anika said.

I put the frozen pink cover in a labeled bag. Under the dry new insulation, the repaired elbow looked plain and sound.

I had no spare wool cover for it.

"I'll make that one yellow," I said.

"Make it loud."

Ruth called to check the inventory. She asked us to keep all returned stock separate and get an independent nursery grower to witness the next checks. I knew someone in Belfast who could come the next morning.

Then I called Mae and the other three original customers together.

I told them exactly what we had found. Each had ordered forty spools at $100 per spool and paid a $3,100 deposit.

"We may have only twenty-four sound spools apiece," I said. "You'll choose after the checks. Any unused deposit comes back."

Mae went quiet.

"I've got boat time booked."

"I know."

That hurt more than Fletcher's chair scraping the floor.

At eight, I locked up with the key supplied under the order. Anika walked beside me to the truck.

An envelope waited beneath my windshield wiper.

Inside was a bill from Fletcher for $46,800, headed Purchase Of Nursery Equipment, Due Immediately.