It was Sarah.
Wide-brimmed hat. Work shirt. Kneeling beside a plant with exact, careful attention. Even 15 years later, Margaret recognized the way her eldest daughter bent toward living things when she was interested. As a child, Sarah had spent whole afternoons in the backyard strawberry patch, checking leaves for pests as if the plants themselves were trusting her with secrets.
“She’s checking for pests,” Margaret murmured. “Sarah always did that.”
They watched the 3 young women work the rows with synchronized efficiency. No chatter. No joking. No ease. They moved like people accustomed to labor and to being watched while doing it. Then a man emerged from the house and crossed the yard toward them.
Margaret needed no binoculars to know him.
“That’s him,” she whispered. “That’s Robert Greenfield.”
He still walked with the same deliberate stride, the same quiet authority that had once read as calm to parents and colleagues. But age had changed him. His hair had gone fully white. His posture had tightened. Even from a distance, there was something more rigid in him now, something sharpened by ownership mistaken for devotion.
The 3 young women gathered when he reached the field. He appeared to be giving instructions, pointing toward separate sections of the rows. They listened with lowered heads and occasional nods.
“They’re afraid of him,” Margaret said.
Jon took the binoculars and watched in silence for several minutes.
“What makes you say that?”
“Look at how they stand,” Margaret said. “That’s not how daughters stand with a father they adore. That’s how children stand with someone they don’t want to disappoint.”
Jon lowered the binoculars, thoughtful, unwilling to say more than he could prove.
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe they’re just serious. We have to be careful what we read into this.”
But Margaret knew what she was seeing. The 3 women worked hard, relentlessly, breaking only when Greenfield brought water or moved them to another task. There was no lightness in their motions. No visible freedom. Just competence shaped by obedience.
After nearly an hour, Greenfield returned to the house. The sisters continued working. Then Sophie, or perhaps Stella, lifted her head and looked toward the road, scanning the hills as though searching for someone she half-expected and half-feared to see.
“We need to get closer,” Margaret said.
“That’s exactly what we said we wouldn’t do.”
“Jon, what if they want to leave and don’t know how? What if they’ve been taught there’s nowhere else?”
Before he could answer, Greenfield reappeared on the porch carrying what was unmistakably a rifle. He stood scanning the hills with slow, suspicious intent.
Jon went still.
“He knows someone’s watching,” he said. “We need to go.”
They drove away carefully, trying not to raise dust.
