I wasn’t sure what the fucking point of this was, but Troy seemed to be enjoying himself. He was riding slowly behind me on his damn green tractor, while I, like a beast of burden, was pulling some kind of seed contraption behind me. It was heavy and my arms were screaming at me to give up, but he told me to be sure to go in a straight line so he wouldn’t have to correct my mistakes. At any point that I tried to stop, that the heat was too much or that the weight of the machine was making my arms shake, he’d pull up next to me and remind me that if he had to stop to do the work himself, I’d end up under his stables again. So, I grit my teeth and bore the burden as best as I could. All seventeen new rows of miles long plots, worth of burden. “Not bad, baby girl,” he said, standing up on his tractor and looking at the newly seeded rows. “Here.” I was breathing heavily and didn’t have the energy to look up. Even though I had set the machine down, I was still holding on to it because I was afraid that if I let it go, I’d fall over.
