“A thousand dollars could go a long way toward fixing up this house,” Isaac pushed. “Maybe hire extra hands to help you with the harvest.”
Isaac had hit on another sore point, so he got out in front of it, “Of course, if I were a better son, I’d come help you.”
His father didn’t say anything, just patted Isaac’s hand.
The following morning, Isaac’s father made eggs for Gussie and black coffee for Isaac. When it was time to go, Isaac whistled for his daughter and carried her small bag out to the car. His father followed him outside. In his hand was the old Campfire Marshmallows canister.
“You said Jim thinks you can get them down to thirty dollars an acre?”
Isaac went mute as he watched his father pry the lid off the can and count out a small wad of bills.
“This should be enough for about ten acres?” he said, handing Isaac three hundred dollars. There was very little money left in the can.
Isaac had talked a good game the previous evening but now he wondered whether he’d pushed too far. If he took this money, combined it with his own, and bought the binder, he’d be on the hook for finding the rest of the money, for getting investors on board, for closing the deal.
It was a lot of pressure. But wasn’t this what Isaac wanted? Not just the chance to make something of himself but the chance to show his father what he was capable of?
“You’re sure about this?” Isaac asked.
Before his father could answer, Gussie came barreling out of the house and into her grandfather’s arms.
“Come back to Atlantic City with us! Please!”
Isaac’s father rubbed the top of her head and chuckled. “No cities for me, Augusta. But tell your father to bring you back soon.”
“You can sleep in my room,” said Gussie.
“Time to go, Gus,” said Isaac as he held the car door open for her.
Isaac shook his father’s hand and gave him a firm pat on the back. He couldn’t bear to look him in the face, to catch his father studying him in the early morning light. “I’ll let you know when the purchase has gone through,” he told the patch of earth between them.
“Give my best to Fannie. And tell her parents I’m sorry.”
Isaac nodded, got into the car, and started the ignition. He gave his father a small wave as he released the clutch and pulled out of the yard.
“Feel better!” Gussie shouted into the dust as the car sped down the farm’s dirt drive.
As Isaac wound his way through Alliance and back toward Vineland, he could think of nothing but the money in his pocket. Between what Isaac had saved and what his father had just given him, he had enough for a binder. He’d call Jim first thing Monday and ask him to send the paperwork. Once Isaac signed, he’d have thirty days—maybe sixty—to get together the rest of the money to close the deal. Selling a few folks on an investment opportunity this good wouldn’t be as easy as it had been in ’25 but it wouldn’t be hard either.
“Hey, Gus,” Isaac said as they passed the synagogue and then the cemetery. “Grandpa said you told him about Florence.”
“Sorry,” she whispered from the seat next to him.
“It’s okay. He’s allowed to know.”
“I thought he might be sad.”
“Like you’re sad?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Isaac could see her bob her head.
“I’m sad, too,” he said.
“Mama will be the most sad,” Gussie offered.
“That’s true.”
Isaac watched the road peel away in front of him for several minutes.
