I became a mother in Canton when I married Nicholas in 1981, and I remained so until three weeks ago, the day after his funeral. I am 68 years old, with arthritic hands that still remember baking the sourdough bread my son Brandon asked for on Sunday mornings, and the feel of my daughter Melissa’s hair when I braided it before elementary school. I tell you this so you understand that, before everything fell apart, I was simply a mother who believed she had raised good children.
took fourteen months to end his life. : that silent executioner that gives you just enough time to get your affairs in order, but not enough to live with the certainty of the disease. At first, we kept it a secret, just between us. Our children were busy with their own lives. Brandon with his career as a financial consultant in Boston, which seemed to force him to miss all the important parties. Melissa with her wellness businesses in Denver, which were constantly failing and somehow always needed “one more investment” from Dad.
“They don’t need this burden yet,” Nicholas said, staring at the ceiling of our room, the morphine making his words slightly slurred. “Let them live a little longer without this shadow.” I nodded because I loved him. But I knew better. I knew our children.
When they finally arrived at our modest farm outside Milfield, Pennsylvania—the same house where they had grown up, where Nicholas and I had transformed 20 acres of abandoned apple orchards into Canton Family Orchards, making it one of the most respected organic companies in the state—they didn’t bring comfort. They brought questions about the will.
“Mom, I’m just trying to be practical,” Brandon said, in that condescending tone he’d perfected after his first six-figure bonus. We were sitting at the kitchen table, Nicholas asleep upstairs, when he brought it up. “The medical bills must be piling up. Have you considered downsizing the company? It can’t be easy for you to run it alone.”
Brandon left Milfield at eighteen, declaring that life in a small Pennsylvania town was as stifling as the land that had financed his education. He only visited when absolutely necessary, and usually stayed in a hotel rather than his old room because “country air irritates my sinuses.” But suddenly, during his father’s last few weeks, he developed a deep interest in the family business that had embarrassed him throughout his teenage years.
