I have lived on the same hundred and forty acres outside Hollow Elm, Arkansas since I was a bride of twenty. My husband Ashbury farmed this ground for forty six years. He has been gone a year and a half now, and until one Saturday in June, the barn behind my house still smelled like him.

My sister Danman died on a Wednesday in June. The funeral was set for that Saturday. Before I left, I called my son Ashwell and asked him to run out to the farm and put feed down for the cattle Friday and Saturday. “Don’t worry about a thing, Mom,” he told me. “I’ve got the farm.”

Signs went up along the county road Thursday afternoon. FARM AUCTION SATURDAY. I did not see those signs. I was already two counties over, standing at my sister’s graveside.
The auction started at nine that morning. Cars lined the county road. A crowd gathered in my yard. One by one they walked my husband’s forty six years out to their trucks.
Danby, our neighbor, was there. He stood at the back of that crowd with his jaw tight the whole morning. He bought what he could afford and brought the workbench back the next day.

I found the Marvel Grease can missing. Inside was my mother’s ring. Ashbury had found the lost stone and reset it. He had engraved inside the band: “Still yours.”
Some men leave you a will. Ashbury left me a ring, two words, and a proof that he had been taking care of me long after I thought his caring for me was over.