Four days before Dad visited Don Jensen to prepare his will.
I began reading.
Wade,
I’m not much good at explaining things, so I’ll put this plainly.
The farm isn’t free and clear. I borrowed against it when I installed the irrigation pivot. I borrowed again when your mother got sick. And after the flood in 2019, I borrowed more.
The total debt is $388,000.
I stopped.
My hands went cold.
Three hundred eighty-eight thousand dollars?
Dad had never told me.
I continued.
The annual payment is $38,000. The farm hasn’t made enough clear profit to cover that payment in six years.
I’ve been borrowing money to pay money I already owed.
I’m ashamed of it.
I swallowed.
All those years I’d worked beside him, I assumed the farm was financially stable.
He’d never allowed me to see the accounts.
I simply trusted him.
Then I reached the next paragraph.
