At the orchard sale, every tree wore a numbered tag, and each tag named a price. Julian’s mother moved briskly among the rows, calculating aloud which trees could pay for the roof. Julian followed with the inventory clipboard, pretending the columns were only columns: variety, age, yield, condition. Near the stone wall stood the pear tree his father had grafted from two kinds of fruit. Its branches twisted in opposite directions, as if arguing with themselves. The buyer called it inefficient. Julian wrote the word under condition, then crossed it out so hard the paper tore. When his mother saw the mark, she said nothing. She only touched the torn place with her thumb. By dusk, the clipboard listed every tree except one. In the blank row where the pear should have been, Julian wrote, “Keeps more than it produces.”