“My grandson loved the patch. That year, it buried him in orange.”
I used to say fall was God’s apology for winter — all gold and rust and that sweet kind of chill that smells like woodsmoke and apples.
On our farm just outside Madison County, October used to bring life. School buses would unload wide-eyed children, their little sneakers sinking into dirt.
Parents would take photos by the scarecrow Ben made when he was nine — the one with the missing button eye and the crooked flannel shirt I couldn’t bear to mend.
We were the last real pumpkin patch in the county. Other farms had long sold out to supermarkets and subdivisions. But our land, it was stubborn. And so was I.
Ben loved the land from the start. He was born the same year we nearly lost the farm in the ’08 crash. His daddy — my son-in-law — left before Ben could say “tractor.”
That boy was raised by strong backs and calloused hands. I taught him how to plant a seed with hope, not pressure. We didn’t have much, but the kid never complained. He was soft-spoken, thoughtful, always had dirt under his nails and something kind in his eyes.
We picked pumpkins together every October. Always together. He had this way of running his fingers along the ridges like he was reading a story only he could understand.
Sometimes he’d name them. “This one’s Rosie,” he’d say, pointing to a lopsided gourd with a wide belly. “She’s shaped like Aunt Linda.”
Every fall, the patch was ours.
That last year, he was fifteen. Too old to be talking to pumpkins, you’d think. But he still did it when he thought I wasn’t listening. His voice deeper, his hair longer, but the same kid underneath.
He’d taken on more of the farm chores. Not by choice, not really. My knees weren’t what they used to be. And his mama, my daughter, worked doubles at the diner after losing her second job at the school. We made it work — just like we always did.
That October came in warmer than usual. The leaves were slow to turn. Business was slow, too. Maybe folks didn’t care so much anymore. Maybe they’d rather order a pumpkin off Amazon and call it fall.
But we still picked.
On the morning it happened, the sky looked like brushed steel. Clouds heavy with something they weren’t ready to drop. I remember because I stood on the porch holding my coffee just a little longer than usual.
Ben had already gone down to the lower field. He was hauling a trailer load of carving pumpkins — the big ones, the kind that sat proud on porches.
He waved from the distance, one hand on the old Kubota steering wheel, his hat tilted back. I smiled and lifted my mug. That was the last time I saw him alive.
They say the brakes gave out. Rusted clean through. I told the county inspector about the wheel wobbling months before, but they sent paperwork instead of help. Rural folks learn to make do.
The slope behind the barn is steep. We never used it for anything but runoff. Ben must’ve tried to steer into the ditch, but the trailer jackknifed. They said he died instantly, crushed beneath the weight.
But that’s not what I saw.
I heard the crash first — a sickening crunch that sent birds screaming from the trees. I ran, barefoot, through mud and fallen husks. I ran like I hadn’t run in years. My heart pounding, my lungs clawing for air.
The field was a mess of orange and metal. Pumpkins cracked open like skulls. The trailer on its side. And him—
He was there. Still. Eyes closed, lips parted just slightly like he was about to tell me the name of the next pumpkin.
I fell to my knees in the dirt, right where the last pumpkin he’d picked rolled to a stop. It touched my foot like it was bringing me the news.
“Ben!” I screamed. I screamed until my voice tore. I screamed until my mouth filled with the scent of soil and crushed pulp and blood.
They had to pull me off of him.
The paramedic was gentle. I hated her for that. I wanted someone to rage with me. I wanted the sky to rip open. I wanted the world to stop spinning.
Instead, I sat in the back of the ambulance holding the pumpkin. His last one. It was still warm.
He was buried three days later. His mother hadn’t stopped crying since. Neither had I, but mine was quieter. The kind that settles in your bones.
Folks came, of course. People from town. Some hadn’t stepped foot on the farm in years. They brought casseroles and memories.
Said things like “He was such a good kid,” and “So full of promise.” One even had the nerve to say “God has a plan.”
I wanted to scream again.
But I didn’t.
I placed the pumpkin on his casket myself. Not some decorative thing from the florist — no. His pumpkin. Still streaked with the same dirt he touched. People looked confused.
One old man even whispered, “Tacky.” But I didn’t care. That pumpkin had his fingerprints. It was his goodbye.
After the burial, I stayed in the field until night fell. The wind kicked up, rustling the dead stalks. Somewhere nearby, an owl called.
I picked up the broken pieces. Not just the pumpkins — all of it. The bent gate he always fixed. The scarecrow missing its hat.
The sun-faded sign with his handwriting: Pick Your Own. $4. I couldn’t throw any of it away. I couldn’t bring myself to close the patch.
But no one came.
Kids didn’t want patches anymore. They wanted screens. They wanted neat rows of fake autumn in the city. Nobody wants to get mud on their shoes for a pumpkin these days.
I sat on the porch each afternoon watching the sun sink lower. Each night I told myself tomorrow I’d sell. I’d finally say yes to the tech company offering six figures for the land. “Distribution hub,” they said. “Great visibility from the highway.”
Ben once said the patch was “the only place that made him feel real.”
Now it felt like a lie.
The day I finally folded up the “OPEN” sign, I found something in his jacket pocket — something that made me drop to my knees all over again.
