Page 132 of Rhodes

After that, she stops guessing. She turns to me at each station.

"Where next?"

By late morning the flags run in a line I can read from a hundred feet off. A pink seam stitches across two hundred yards of bank. The actual edge sits almost forty feet beyond the line on the approved map, forty feet of marsh the paperwork had already written off.

Marion peels off a glove and wipes her forehead.

"Old delineation’s wrong. It’s been wrong for years.” She says it with no emotion, like she’s reading a grocery list. “I’ll have the written report in about a week. Once your grandfather signs, we send the corrected line in for approval, and hopefully this will all be lifted, and y'all can put this mess behind you."

She loads her gear. The tech folds the last of his flags into a canvas bag and climbs in.

I stand in the mud and watch her truck pull through the Oak Moss gate and disappear.

Nobody drove out here with me this morning. And nobody made the appointment for me or stood over my shoulder while I did it. I know this property as well as or better than any of them, and today, when the woman they hired needed to know where the marsh actually ended, she asked me.

Grandbank holds the summary page at arm's length, then closer, then arm's length again. He reads it to himself for what feels like an eternity while I count how many times the ceiling fan turns.

Nobody says a word. Granger sits across from me with his hands folded, his own copy of the report open in front of him, dog-eared where he's already scoured it. The sweet tea sweats a ring into the vinyl tablecloth.

Wilkins ran the credit numbers three weeks ago and told my father all of it rings true, which is the only reason my father is sitting at this table with his own marked-up copy instead of on the phone telling me to slow down.

Grandbank sets the page down. "Line's forty feet off."

"Yes sir," I confirm, even though we both already know this and have talked about it at length.

"Has been for years," he grunts and slides the determination request out from under the bound report.

I nod. He reaches for the pen jar and pulls a black pen. He clicks it out, then back in, and replaces it in the jar for another. Finally, he finds a suitable pen and turns the paper and signs.

Granger clears his throat. "Have you decided about the conservation easement?"

Grandbank doesn't look up. "As soon as all this horseshit settles, I'm putting Oak Moss under easement. I've already called Dell Ravenel and set it in motion. We can't do anything until this is done."

Granger leans forward. He isn't hot about it, but he's careful. "Dad. That easement doesn't just tie your hands. It ties all of your heirs, including your grandchildren, and then their kids. You're seventy-one years old, and you're deciding on what our family gets to do with this land in the year twenty-ninety. Nobody after you can undo it. Ever."

Grandbank taps the report with two fingers. "You are describing the exact thing I am trying to do, son. Somebody in the year twenty-fifty, long after I’m gone, is going to want to sell this bottom to a man with a bulldozer. I would like very much for that person to find out they cannot. What happens in twenty-ninety-one is someone else’s problem.”

“Dad—”

"Your daughter's been right about that bank since I don’t know how long. I'm tired of being the last one in this family to say so."

He said it out loud, in front of my father. My hands go loose on the table. Grandbank signed it. That bank gets to live because I would not let it go.

Then Grandbank's hand comes over mine on the sticky tablecloth. His fat, dry fingers, permanently creased with the mud that makes up our heritage, are heavy on my hand.

"What's done is done. I've said my piece about it. Based on what Tilly found, and what Dell confirmed, this property will continue to be profitable as well as sentimental. I know this is the right thing for Oak Moss."

The satisfaction catches halfway down. He doesn’t know the whole of what happened to get us here. I open my mouth, but there’s nowhere to put the truth.

I nod at him.

Grandbank caps the pen and tucks it into his pocket instead of replacing it in the jar. Granger picks up his keys without another word.

The screen door claps behind us, and the heat drops straight down. There's no shade on this side of the property at noon. Grandbank gets in his truck and backs out before turning toward the driveway to Maybank Highway without a word.

The crushed shell of the drive throws the light back at me. Daddy sets his hand between my shoulder blades and steers me toward the Cruiser.

"You did good work, Til." He keeps it between the two of us. "We should’ve consulted you from the beginning instead of doing it the way we did. We got it wrong, Til, and for that I’m sorry."