A Thousand Acres

Ginny takes Rose to her three-month post-operation appointment in Mason City. The appointment goes well, and it appears that Rose has healed better than expected from her mastectomy. To celebrate, they decide to go shopping. They shop for clothes, but Rose, who has not bought new clothes since her operation, does not like how the clothes fit her.

Ginny asks if Rose has talked to Caroline, and she says she has not. Rose reminds Ginny that Caroline does not rely on Larry the way they do: She has an independent income and has always been headstrong.

Rose decides they should go home instead of eating in town since she is tired. As they drive home, Rose tells Ginny about a recurring dream she has about “grabbing things that hurt” her (62).

Because Caroline was only six when their mother died, Larry decided Rose and Ginny would raise her. They focused primarily on manners and feminine tasks they understood and knew how to do. Larry has always favored Caroline, and Ginny has always been uncomfortable seeing them interact.

One day, Ginny decides to call Caroline but gets distracted when she sees her father sitting in his La-Z-Boy chair, staring out the front window. Worried that he has died in his chair, she goes into his house to check on him. He is alive, and they make small talk. She invites him over for dinner, but he declines, and when she answers his questions about the farm, he gets angry with how Ty and Pete are handling things.

Later, Rose calls to ask why their father is sitting in front of the window. They realize this is how he is spending his retirement. Ginny considers calling Caroline but suddenly feels too nervous to do so. She plans to call her later in the week unless she hears from her sooner. 

As Ginny goes about her farm duties, she realizes she is always looking for Jess. She considers the fact that Jess has survived her worst fear: being abandoned by his father. She is not exactly excited to see Jess, mainly because she worries he will force her to confront family issues she is not ready to discuss.

Jess comes home with Ty one night for supper. He spent the day helping Ty farm. He eats dinner with Ginny and Ty, and they enjoy his company, not wanting him to leave at the end of the meal. They move to the front porch to drink and reminisce about their teenage years. Jess reveals he does not know if he is going to stick around the farm, but he feels like he needs to figure out his life before he decides. Ty offers to rent him some of his land if he would like to farm, and Jess says he will think about it. Jess likes the idea of trying out organic farming.

Ty brings up a news story about a girl who was stabbed to death. Her father and brother, in an attempt to protect her, chased after her ex-boyfriend, her attacker, leaving a door open. The ex-boyfriend snuck in through the door, and the girl hid in a bedroom. However, she decided to come out to try to calm him down, at which point he took her to another bedroom and began stabbing her. Ty says that anyone could have been like the father, while Ginny remarks that she wonders what the girl was thinking by leaving the room. Jess says that she did not expect him to hurt her.

When Jess leaves, Ty says it would be fun to have Jess closer to them.

Ginny, Ty, Rose, Pete, and Jess begin “the Million Dollar World Series of Monopoly, that lasted two weeks or so” (76). They love playing and sharing funny stories during their games. During the games, Ginny begins to feel differently about Pete, finding him to be fun and less scary.

One night, Jess tells them that Harold is planning a remodeling project. He will be ripping out the linoleum in the kitchen and replacing it with concrete that slopes down to a drain. This will allow him to hose the kitchen down when it is dirty. They laugh at the ludicrousness of the remodel and want to tell Larry, thinking he will find it amusing. However, Rose jokingly says that he might instead want to outdo Harold by completing an even bigger remodel.

The next day, Ginny sees a delivery truck arrive at Larry’s house. Ginny goes over because Larry is not around to accept the delivery. It turns out that Larry has bought kitchen cabinets, a sink, and a countertop for $1000; however, these new items do not match his existing kitchen. The delivery men unload the materials in the driveway and leave. Both Ty and Pete later offer Larry help in moving the materials inside, but Larry puts them off, saying he is not sure where he wants to put them yet.

Two days later, it is going to rain heavily, so Ginny and Ty go to Larry’s to help him move the cabinets inside. However, he yells at them, telling them he will move the cabinets when he is “good and ready.” That night at the Monopoly tournament, everyone tries to figure out what Larry is up to with the new cabinets. Rose believes he is just trying to outdo Harold. She reveals that he has also bought a new white couch.

Pammy and Linda are home from boarding school, and Pammy asks Ginny if Larry has a mental health condition. Ginny tells her he is not and that Rose is just exaggerating his condition. Pammy reveals that Rose told the girls not to be alone with Larry. Pammy admits that Larry scares her a little bit.

Back at the Monopoly game, Rose wonders if Larry has Alzheimer’s. Ty and Pete do not think so, noting that he remembers everything. He has taken a hands-off approach to the farm but still complains about everything Pete and Ty do. Rose believes “He’s out of control” (84), and Ginny agrees.

The next day, Ginny takes Pammy and Linda swimming in Pike. The girls are quiet on the way to the pool and reveal to Ginny that they do not have friends in town anymore since they started attending boarding school. While they do not dislike boarding school, they are not very popular with the rich kids who attend. They have been given farm-related nicknames by the other children like “Lambie” and “Mac, for Old MacDonald” (86). Ginny tries to make the girls feel better, telling them that they will make friends again at the pool. She reflects on her childhood of feeling left out from parties with other girls and remembers how Rose would sneak out of the house and then have explosive fights with Larry when she returned home.

They arrive at the pool and find a place to sit. Mary Livingstone, a friend of Ginny’s mother, comes over with her two grandsons. She instructs Linda to watch her grandsons while she talks to Ginny. She tells Ginny that they are selling their farm under the advice of Marv Carson. She asks about Rose and her illness and then says it reminds her of their mother’s illness. Before Ginny’s mother died, she had asked Mary to help with the girls. Mary says that their mother was worried about what kind of life her daughters would live with Larry. She worried the girls would not have many choices. Mary feels like she has let Ginny and Rose down and apologizes. Mary gets her grandchildren and leaves, but Ginny feels upset about the conversation. She decides to swim to cool off, feeling upset and bothered.

Ginny never really knew her mother because she died when she was so young and is unnerved by the fact that her mother was able to predict how her life would turn out. She realizes she has a lot of questions about her mother, but no one to ask them.

When Ginny and the girls get home, Ty and Pete are installing a new air conditioner. Rose informs Ginny that she has fed Larry and that Jess will be coming over shortly. Ginny is surprised because Larry typically eats at Rose’s house on Friday, and she worries about upsetting his schedule. Rose argues that the only reason he is rigid is because they have humored him and allowed him to be the way he is.

The phone rings and Ginny picks it up. It's Caroline, whom Ginny has not talked to since the fight. Caroline asks if their father is okay because when she returned to her office after being in New York for two days, she had a message saying that Larry had come looking for her. When she called him, he refused to speak to her, hanging up the phone. Caroline asks if Ginny and Rose signed the incorporation papers, and Ginny says they did because they did not have a choice. Caroline disagrees, saying they did. Since a lot is going on at the house, Ginny says she will call Caroline back. When she gets off the phone, Rose implies that she is upset with Caroline for not calling to ask about her post-operation appointment. She seems to be upset that Caroline got to leave the farm and have a life outside of it. As Ginny goes outside to tend to the meat on the grill, she tells Jess that she has a bad feeling and that “This is the day when everything I was worried about came to pass” (100).

On Sunday, the family gathers at Larry’s house for Father’s Day. Larry is obviously in a bad mood, snapping at Rose when she tells him how to cut the meat. As they eat, Larry reveals that he has been driving around the state in his spare time. Ginny asks if he went to Des Moines to see Caroline, and he denies it.

Later that night, Ty tells Ginny that Larry feels like he is not in control anymore because of the transfer. Ginny says she does not even think about the transfer and that if it bothers Larry, he should just undo it. Ty gets upset at this because the transfer matters to him, and he hates that Ginny is in control of it. He tells her that the transfer was a good idea and that she and Rose should try to be more agreeable with Larry. Ginny argues that they are just trying to understand him, but Ty reminds her that he is a respected farmer and people listen to him. As Ginny drifts off to sleep, she remembers all the stories she has heard about her father’s charisma and bravery.

Harold pretends to be harebrained but is very calculating and ambitious. As the Monopoly tournament continues, everyone talks about Harold and his tendency to complain. Jess says he is very manipulative, which surprises Ginny. Pete reveals that he overheard Harold at the feedstore the day before talking about changing his will.

The conversation shifts to a farmer who has worked the land in a way that Jess would not have. When Ty gets offended at Jess’s opinion, Jess apologizes, saying if he was farming, he would have to ask Ty for a lot of help. The next morning, Ty tells Ginny that people do not realize there’s no room left for trying things that might not work out.

After Ty leaves for work, Ginny struggles to motivate herself to go to her father’s house. She thinks about all the ways men and women struggle on farms, and how their challenges are different due to gender.

When she arrives at Larry’s house to cook him breakfast, he tells her he does not have any eggs since no one did the grocery shopping over the weekend. She realizes this is a test: She can either make him a cold breakfast, which will not be up to his standards and prove that she is selfish, or she can go get eggs from her home, which will cause chaos and a delay and prove that she is incompetent. She decides to go get eggs from her house and feels self-conscious the entire time. She cooks breakfast and tries to find the courage to ask him again about Caroline but cannot find it. She decides her role in her father’s life is to give him what he wants and try to please him.

When Caroline calls later, she confirms that it was Larry who came to the office. The two women argue, and Caroline tells Ginny that she needs to keep better tabs on Larry. She accuses Pete and Ty of not letting Larry work. Ginny tells her that Larry does not want to work or do anything. Caroline accuses Ginny of benefiting from the farm incorporation and says that she does not think Larry’s interests were protected. She says that if she had been involved more with the transfer, things would have happened differently.

Ginny and Rose have always felt like Caroline and Larry’s relationship was odd. They feel like Caroline alternated between “loyalty and scheming.” Caroline had tried to understand Larry through modern psychology in the past, but Rose would always simply explain that Larry was a farmer, which made up his whole personality. Ginny gets off the phone with Caroline shaken up but decides to keep their conversation to herself.

Ginny spends her morning cleaning the house before Jess shows up unannounced. He wants to go on a walk and persuades Ginny to go with him. He takes her to “the dump,” a place at the back of Harold’s farm that he visited often as a kid. They discuss their childhood and the various flora and fauna of the dump and farm.

Jess asks Ginny who Larry’s favorite child is, and she guesses Caroline. He tells her that people in town are starting to get suspicious about how Ginny and Caroline convinced Larry to give them the farm, even though it was Larry’s idea. Jess says Harold wants him to stay on the farm, but he does not know if he can morally do that since he is a vegetarian and disagrees with so many of the ways people farm. Jess admits that Harold is making lots of hints about changing his will. He feels better after talking to Ginny.