Summer is here, and our cows now spend their days outside, roaming freely and grazing to their hearts’ content.

Earlier this week we moved the last calves born in April out of their hutches. In a couple of months, the males will be sold to feedlots, and the females will be raised to become milking cows like their mothers.

Life goes on.

“You’re unhappy,” Ma says as we clean the barn.

“I’m perfectly satisfied with my existence.”

“Oh really?” She tilts her head to the side. “Is that why you never smile anymore?”

I frown. “Yes, I do.”

“Nope. You haven’t smiled once since your Clarissa left for Paris.”

“She was never mine,” I say. “And she has nothing to do with this.”

We finish in silence and head for the house to have lunch with our volunteers. But before we go in, she stops in her tracks and turns to me.

“What is it, Ma?”

“I want to tell you a story.”

“Now? Here?”

She nods. “I’ve never told you this and it’s been gnawing at me.”

“OK.”

“In your last months of middle school when you told your teachers you were going to continue at an agricultural lycée, your father and I received a visit.”

“Who?”

“Your principal. She said it would be a waste of talent to send you to a vocational school, that you should be encouraged to go to college and study economics, law, medicine, engineering—anything you wanted—because you had the capacity for it.”

“What?”

“She said you had a good head for math. She showed us your grades.”

“They were nothing special.”

Ma lets out a sigh. “That’s what you think because that’s what your dad put in your head.”

“What are you saying, Ma?” I narrow my eyes. “I know what my grades were. I saw them, remember?”

“Yeah, but you misinterpreted them. Your dad managed to convince you that only straight-A students should go to college. But your grades were solid.”

I fold my arms over my chest and stare at her.

“Your principal said, ‘Consider this—Nathan gets those grades without even trying. I know he helps you with the farm when he should be doing homework.’ ”

“What did you say?”

“I wanted to ask her more questions, but your father exploded. He started yelling at the woman.”

Ma tries to imitate his voice. “What’s wrong that? What’s wrong with agriculture and running a dairy farm? How do you think your favorite milk, yogurt, and cheese land on your table? Why the hell is it a waste of talent if Nathan chooses the life of a farmer?”

I find it hard to picture Pop yelling at my school principal like that, and yet I don’t doubt for a second that Ma is telling the truth.

She shifts uncomfortably. “Your principal asked if the life of a farmer was what you wanted, what you’d chosen. Your dad said yes.”

“We’d discussed it at some point,” I say, jumping to his defense.

“I was there when you did,” Ma says. “It wasn’t a discussion. It was a monologue—his.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“To come clean.” She gives me a weak smile. “I’m just as much to blame as your dad for robbing you of choices.”

I smirk. “So, I should hate both of you now.”

“I hope not,” she says. “I adore you. So did your dad. He was a good man.”

“I know that.”

She nods. “I loved him deeply, and he was sick, and I… I refused to see what he was doing to you, how he was undermining your self-confidence.”

“Ma—”

“At that age,” she interrupts me, “kids aren’t supposed to think they have no choice but to honor the decisions that were made for them. They’re supposed to think the sky is the limit.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t have chosen this life anyway even if I was encouraged to look elsewhere?”

“I don’t know that,” she says. “But what I do know is that keeping the farm in the family was more important to your dad than anything. It was the destiny he’d chosen for himself and for you, and I was too weak to argue.”

“Is this about…?” I pause, looking for the right words. “Ma, are you trying to set me free to be with Ri— Clarissa?”

“It’s more about... making amends to you, my boy. And, yes, I’m also trying to set you free to live the life you choose.”

I clasp my hands over my head and stare at her for a long moment. “Whatever choice I make, we’re not selling the farm.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Because if we do,” I say, “Pop’s sacrifice would’ve been for nothing.”