Rachel stared at me.
“You gave our inheritance to strangers?”
“No,” I said quietly. “I gave my money a purpose.”
“We are your children!”
“You remembered that when you wanted something.”
Marcus stepped forward, but the officer beside him raised one hand.
Marcus stopped.
“What about the farm itself?” he asked. “Who bought it?”
Samuel closed the folder.
“The Carter Fields Cooperative.”
Neither of them understood.
Rachel frowned.
“What is that?”
The farm’s buyer, Luis Mendoza, stepped forward.
Luis had worked beside Daniel for twenty-six years. He began as a seasonal worker at nineteen, became our field manager at thirty, and knew the soil better than anyone alive.
After Daniel’s d/e/@/th, Luis helped me through harvests I would never have managed alone. He repaired equipment at midnight, trained young workers, and never once asked for more than we could afford to give.
Now he held the deed to the farm.
