Toronto could never do this.
I glance around as I step onto the lot, and I’m not surprised to see it’s completely empty. Everyone is gearing up for some long, hard days planting, and already they’re putting in the extra hours to prepare for it. But on a Friday night, Scott likes to make sure his employees don’t stay too late.
Yet another win for PEI. There’s nothing quite like working for someone who actually cares about you.
As I approach the office, I glance out at the fields between the buildings, and a nagging annoyance stirs inside me. Because oneof those fields I haven’t so much as looked at yet. But now it’s time.
Silas may have an interest in the hollow heart field, but I was hired to optimize the farm’s overall performance. If that block is going to factor into the yield targets, and if its data feeds into system reports and risk assessments, then it has to be part of my planning. I can’t exclude it just because he’s planted his flag there. It’s skewing the curve, and if I continue to ignore it, it will drag the whole system with it.
I let myself into the building and head down the hall to my office. It’s lit by the last spill of sunlight cutting a path across the desk, so I leave the light off, grab a couple binders from the bookshelf, and settle into my chair. I flip through them to find the reports and notes I need to take home tonight to review, then snap the binders shut. But as I turn to stick them back on the shelf, movement outside catches my eye.
I pause as my eyes land on Silas, leaning against the back of the garage facing the fields… reading.
My brows draw together as I take in the open folder spread across his lap. What is he doing?
I lean forward, squinting to try to get a closer look, but he’s too far away for me to tell what it is he’s reading. But what I do see sends a pang of guilt and sadness right through me.
It looks like he’s covering parts of the paper, like he always had to do to read. He had to do that to block out the noise so there was only one sentence in front of him, and he could just focus on one thing at a time. But even then, he found it hard.
He pauses and lifts his head as his gaze drifts across the field like he's lost in it, and I just watch him, taking this moment to see him when he doesn’t see me. His head turns towards the hollow heart field, and realization hits me. I look down at the report in my hands and sigh.
The Field Variability and Yield Risk Assessment for the hollow heart field.
Shit… this is what he’s reading…
I skimmed over it the other day, just enough to grab preliminary data for inclusion in the season’s operational model. But I planned to fully review it all tonight.
Silas lowers his head, bringing his attention back to the report in his lap. I watch as he shifts the papers around to block a new section, but it only takes a few seconds before his hand goes to his head, and he tosses the folder aside as he leans back hard against the garage wall.
Fuck.
I’ve never known Silas to continue with something like this after it overwhelms him. In school, it was nearly impossible to get him to read or keep going with something after it defeated him. Once he felt he failed, that was the end of it. Even with learning accommodations and behaviour support, something inside him just shut down the moment he felt lost. And I knew it was protection. I knew he thought he was going to fail before he even started. And he hated failing. So at some point along the way, it became easier for him to just not even try.
But now, here he is… working on this field all on his own and even trying to fight through a technical report.
My dad’s words echo in my head, and I release a breath.
Remember where you both came from.
Suddenly, Silas’s reaction to my offer to help seems less like hostility and more like defence. He’s never cared enough about anything to try this hard, to push himself to tackle it on his own, and to claim it as his.
Accepting help probably feels like failure.
But it’snot. He’snotfailing.
I just don’t know how to make him see that.
Especially if it’s coming from me.
I lean back in my chair as I quietly watch him and take in the frustration written all over him. His fingers press into his head, and his shoulders tense as he takes short, shallow breaths, and he looks like he’s one second away from a meltdown. And it hurts my heart to watch.
I wish I could help him.
I wish he wanted me to help him.
Suddenly, Winston bounds around the side of the garage, his golden coat catching the final rays of sunshine, and his tail wags furiously when he spots Silas.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
