Chapter 4 - STRAWBERRIES AND DUST
For two weeks, the routine at the Robles ranch shifted into a strange, tense rhythm.
Every morning at 5:15 a.m., before the sun cleared the eastern hills, Sebastián's rental truck would pull up to the gate. He traded his hand-tailored suits for flannel shirts, denim jeans, and sturdy work boots. He didn't offer advice, he didn't boast about his wealth, and he didn't push his sons to talk to him.
He simply worked.
He hauled fifty-kilogram sacks of harvested corn alongside Tomás, his palms blistering and bleeding until they calloused over. He helped Mateo repair the old hydraulic pump on the tractor, using his hands to clear grease and dirt from the rusted pistons—a skill he hadn't used since he was twenty years old.
One late afternoon, as the heat of the day began to break, Mateo sat under the shade of a large walnut tree, spread out with blue circuit boards and wiring from an old solar-powered moisture sensor he was trying to rebuild.
Sebastián walked over, carrying two cold bottles of mineral water. He sat down on a wooden crate a few feet away, handing one bottle to Mateo.
"You have a natural mind for engineering," Sebastián observed softly, watching Mateo carefully soldier a copper joint. "Where did you learn circuit design?"
"Rafael bought me an old electronics textbook from a secondhand store in Guadalajara when I was twelve," Mateo replied, not looking up from his work. "He didn't understand any of it, but he spent three weeks helping me build a wooden workbench in the shed so I’d have a place to study."
Sebastián felt a sharp, familiar pang of regret in his throat. "Rafael was a good man."
"He was an incredible man," Mateo said, finally setting down his soldering iron and looking at Sebastián through his thick lenses. "When the river flooded four years ago and destroyed half the crop, he didn't eat dinner for two weeks so we could afford my asthma medication. He never complained. He never made us feel like a burden."
"I know I missed everything, Mateo," Sebastián murmured, looking at his calloused hands. "I know there's no reset button."
"Why did you really leave?" Mateo asked softly. The anger that usually animated Tomás was absent in Mateo; in its place was a quiet, intellectual curiosity that was almost harder to face. "My mother said you were scared."
Sebastián took a long breath, looking toward the mountains. "I was terrified. I was twenty-four, working three jobs, watching the soil dry up during the ninety-eight drought. I thought if I stayed, we would all starve slowly. I told myself I was going to Mexico City to make enough money to bring you all there. But once I got a taste of success... once Mauricio showed me how much money was out there... I got consumed by ambition. I let my pride tell me that poverty was a disease I had to run away from."
"And now?"
"Now I realize that the poorest years of my life were the only ones that actually mattered," Sebastián said quietly.
Before Mateo could respond, a horn honked loudly from the main road.
A heavy industrial transport truck, escorted by two black private security vehicles, pulled up to the northern perimeter fence—the boundary separating the ranch from the municipal river access point.
May you like
Tomás came running out of the barn, holding a heavy iron pry bar. "Sebastián! Look!"
Sebastián stood up quickly, his eyes narrowing. "Mauricio."
