A Gift of Maple Syrup and Other Stories

Selling Off the Family Farm Harold and Maud Smith had farmed the old home place for nearly sixty years. Not alone, of course. Evan, their middle child and only surviving son, had done most of the hard work during those last two decades. Harold had never lived in any other house—he was born in the bedroom he would later share for decades with his beloved wife—until Evan convinced his mother that for everyone’s sake his father should be moved over to the new facility in Gilead, a retirement home where they could properly care for Harold in his declining health. Mother and son sat in the dining room at the round oak table, covered with a lace tablecloth Maud had tatted decades earlier, back when she also knit all the mittens, socks and sweaters her family wore—all from the wool of the Suffolk sheep raised there on the home place. The beds were covered with her patchwork quilts. Her afghans provided extra warmth for wrapping up in during the hard months. And as they sat there at the table, under their feet was one of the many large rugs Maud had braided, using up pieces of clothing no longer usable as such. She had also tried her hand at hooking a couple of rugs that said welcome. They had worn out years ago and she’d replaced them with rubber mats at each entrance. Evan saw her now, sitting in the spindle-back oak chair, as a large comma. Her back was hunched, her arthritic hands, almost like claws, folded into themselves on her aproned lap, and her head was bent in prayer. She had continued to do her best to pull her thinning white hair into a bun, but mostly it hung loose about her deeply lined face. Her eyes had gone pale blue, almost wolf-like, except they were nearly lifeless. She refused to talk about the cataracts.