“Say, the price for your brisket isn’t bad,” the man said as he glanced over the list at our farmers’ market stall, “when you consider how much you get paid for your steaks!”

I tried not to let it get to me. In spite of the barb, it had been a decent market day, and the weather was beautiful. We packed up as swiftly as we could, eager to get home to be ready for the family birthday dinner we’d be holding for Saoirse later that evening.

We pulled in the driveway, and I saw Dad peak his head out of the grain room. I knew I should start immediately helping Bob unload the coolers, but I didn’t want to. Dad likes to get his market report. Bob doesn’t mind. So I walked over and squinted up at him as he stood on the top step and looked down, a broad smile on his face as he filled his last bucket and prepared to climb down. “Well?” he asked, expectantly waiting for the sales totals, along with any gossip I could bring him. His foot was on the top step, nearly at my eye level. It caught my eye, as I noticed that he had placed it down so that only the back of his heel was on the wood. Doesn’t he know that he isn’t actually on that stair? I thought to myself. But before I could say anything, he had begun to fall. Our eyes met, and I saw the terror fly across his face. He had only just had his back surgery six weeks ago. The nerves in his legs were still excruciatingly raw. And clearly he had not yet regained sensation in his feet, if he couldn’t detect that he wasn’t on that stair. His eyes locked on mine before he came tumbling forward. I held out my hands and shifted my weight fully in his direction.

I caught him. We stood there a moment, gripping to each other, trying not to think about what could have happened. I looked down at his shoes. “The soles on your boots are too thick, Dad,” I remarked. “You aren’t getting enough biofeedback to know where you’re stepping.” Nothing more was said.

Saoirse came running up to us, unaware of what had just transpired, her eyes radiant at the excitement of her birthday, her cheeks flushed from the thrills of her day. She threw her arms around me. “Hi Mom!” Her wide smile trumped even the broad brim of her hat. “Grammie and I are going fishing!” she bubbled. “Pop Pop, can you come too?”

 

“I can’t,” he looked down at the grain buckets. “I need to go in and rest for a minute, then I gotta finish chores.” He went inside, shifting his weight side to side on his path, to ease the fatigue in his legs. I went back to help Bob. We finished unloading the meat and the ice packs, and rinsed the coolers. Then we made our way to the house. “We’ll finish chores, Dad,” I told him. “Just rest.”

Bob and I went over the list of what was undone. I went out to the lambs while he brought feed to the pigs, then drove out to the back field to put the chickens in. We brought the Mule back to the garage as we finished up, where Dad came out to greet us. “Don’t bother putting it away,” he said, his energy suddenly revived. “I’m taking it fishing.” I smiled to myself.

We drove home to set the table. Bob shucked the sweet corn, and I made pesto for the zucchini. A short while later, my brother and sister-in-law came in with their toddler and their new baby. I glanced at the clock. Mom, Dad and the girls were late. What could be holding them up? We made drinks and began carving the chicken.

A little while later, the four missing guests burst in the door, Saoirse carrying her grandmother’s iPod. “Mommy! Mommy! Look! Look at the size of the fish Pop Pop caught!” She ran into the kitchen and scrolled through a series of photos of their great conquest. I was too distracted getting supper on the table to give it much thought.

But my attention soon came front and center when my sister-in-law, who has only just returned to her job after her maternity leave, announced that on her first day back she was awarded a promotion, a 14% pay raise, and a retention bonus.

“What’s a retention bonus?” I called from the kitchen. I wasn’t familiar with the term.

“It’s money they pay you as part of an agreement to stay on the job for a certain period of time, and not go looking someplace else,” she explained.

As the story unfolded, we learned she had been called into the office of a superior on her first day back. Over the course of her maternity leave, it had come to the company’s attention just how much they suffered in her absence, and just how valuable she was as an employee. In an era when women are still getting penalized by corporate America for choosing to have families, my sister-in-law is bucking the trend. I felt very proud of her….Then I felt a green streak of jealousy shoot through my body. That retention bonus alone was worth nearly four times Bob’s and my income in 2013. She was getting a bonus, on top of a pay raise. And I had to listen to some guy at the market tell me that $11.25 per pound for our brisket was over-priced.

But my jealousy ran deeper. How marvelous to go into work and have someone say we really value you. We can’t do this without you. We want to reward you.

“Hey!” I shouted out over the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen as I lifted the lid from the sweet corn, capturing the attention of Mom and Dad in the living room. They looked over. “Where the hell is my retention bonus?”

“Hey yourself!” Mom shouted back just as loud. “Where the hell is my retention bonus?” Stalemate.

We pressed my sister-in-law for more of her story. With that, she began sharing the details of her performance evaluations. I put down the platter of chicken and gaped at her. Performance evaluation? Someone got to examine her day in and day out and pass judgment on her performance? And it was written up in a file someplace? I felt my spine bristle at the very idea.

The story flitted from my mind as the evening rolled on and we feasted on all the delights that the midsummer harvest offers up. But the next morning, when I slipped out of bed to go for a walk and watch the sun come up, my jealousy and self-pity returned.

I can give lip service to the idea that my value in life can not be quantified, but there are times when I question it. I question whether I was a fool to walk away from a conventional career. I question whether my co-workers, who happen to be my own family, truly value what I do.

There are no retention bonuses in family farming. Nobody hands you a bonus check and says, “we couldn’t do this without you.” Nobody even worries whether you’ll go someplace else. We are bonded to the land. We are bonded to each other, and we are hostage to a culture of taking each other for granted.

But there are no performance evaluations, either. Nobody looks at my work and judges the quality. Nobody is writing down whether any of us is sufficiently dependable, cooperative or adaptable. Nobody makes a note in a file when we stand in the kitchen and hurl invectives at each other and slam doors. Nobody is going to fire me or eliminate my position.

There is no retention bonus, a voice in my head proclaimed, because you live your reward. But where was the reward? By that point I had perched myself on a rock overlooking a pond. My three dogs were alternately sniffing around the forest and coming to lay beside my feet. The reward is this time beside a pond, I told myself. Was that all I’d bought myself? Time to sit beside a pond and breathe deeply? Anyone could do that on a Sunday morning.

But then my mind flashed to the previous afternoon, and I replayed the scene, where Bob and I pulled in from the market. I was smiling as I jumped out of the car. Nothing particularly spectacular had happened, it’s just that, even when someone complains about the price of a brisket, I still love what I do. And I ignored the work of unloading for a minute, because I knew that Bob wouldn’t mind. I knew there was no performance evaluation. Instead, I went and stood at the foot of the grain room stairs, because at that moment, the person I most wanted to see was my Dad. And he was smiling at me, because he was happy, too. And then he fell.

And then I got to catch him.

And there we were. Present in the moment for each other, for no other reason than because it was where we wanted to be. On that particular afternoon, my arms were his retention bonus. And his regained balance was mine.

I walked back to the house, my steps much lighter, my belly grumbling for breakfast. I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge to find something to eat. And there, on the shelf, skinned and filleted, was my very favorite breakfast in the entire world: Dad’s fresh-caught fish, left for me….a priceless reward for sticking around.