Preston's Honor(76)

Still . . .

I love you. I always have.

I smiled, the memory of his words bringing hope and a deep, heart-pounding happiness. And fear. If we messed this up again, I didn’t know if my heart could survive it.

And though I’d pledged to try again, anger simmered inside me when I thought about how Preston and Cole had raced for me all those years ago. What fools. What stupid, selfish fools—especially Cole who had cheated. No, especially Preston who had stood aside because he hadn’t won. How could he? How could he say he loved me yet stepped back because of the results—won fairly or not—of a stupid contest? It made me crazy to think about it, to remember how hurt I’d been when I’d learned that Preston didn’t want me. Or so I’d thought.

I’d almost walked away from him, out of hurt and anger and a rising tide of resentment, but I’d forced myself to turn back, to confront him and tell him exactly how I felt. And although it was difficult, I’d done it, and I’d felt better. So though it wasn’t easy, I was going to try to continue on that route.

Make a fuss, mi amor. Make a fuss.

I brought the checks out to my last two customers and as I was cashing them out, María came up to the computer. “Are those your last tables?”

I moved aside so she could step forward to the computer screen. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to come with us to deliver food? We go to the migrant farmworkers’ camp every Monday. We didn’t go last week because we were held up with that annual food department inspection, so they’ll be looking forward to it.”

I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Migrant farmworkers’ camp?”

“Yes. There’s one a couple of miles outside of town. It’s mostly men, but there are a few families. We save the leftover food from the week—especially fruits and vegetables because they’re too poor to afford them—and deliver it.” She shrugged. “If they have other needs, we see what we can do.”

I knew about the camp outside of town because some of the men and women my mama had worked with at Sawyer Farm so many years before had lived there, though I’d never driven by it personally. My mama had lived in one similar when she’d first settled in California—a camp that was now closed.

It had actually been a small matter of pride that my mama and I had been able to rent the outbuilding on the property next to the Sawyers’, rather than having to live in the migrant camp off the highway, even though the outbuilding had been an underequipped shack. I had hated it, but it was ours, and we didn’t have to share it with five other strangers. I tilted my head. “You do?”

“Yeah, Alejandro and Raul both drive so there’s space in Alejandro’s truck or Raul’s car if you want to join us. It’s an eye-opener. And it really does bring a sense of satisfaction to help in such a personal way.”

I wasn’t sure I needed my eyes opened to poverty greater than what I’d experienced myself, but then again, maybe I did. And I knew I could use something to bring some personal satisfaction. “Sure . . . I’d like to go.”

“Great,” she said, stepping away from the computer and heading out to the restaurant floor. “Meet us up front in half an hour.”

I did my side work as quickly as possible and cashed out for the night and then pulled on my light jacket, heading toward the front. Rosa was coming out of her office. “Oh, Lia, María said you’re coming with us.”

“Hi, Rosa. Yes, if that’s okay.”

“It’s wonderful. The more hands the better.”

I helped them load up Alejandro’s pickup truck at the back door to the kitchen with boxes of food and then climbed into Raul’s car with him and María and we were off.

We turned off the highway onto a bumpy dirt road and drove past a sign that read, “Milkweed Labor Camp.” The camp was at the dead end of the road and we parked next to a truck so old and beat up it looked as if it had been ready for the impound yard long before I was born. I knew it was at least one of the trucks the people who lived here drove to the farms, because I’d seen ones just like it over the years with men and women packed into the back wearing baseball caps draped with bandanas on their way to work where they’d spend the day picking fruits and vegetables under the unforgiving Californian sun. Men and women who worked longer and harder and with deep pride, so grateful to have the work.

My aunt had described the living conditions in many parts of Mexico—the poverty, the despair, the children and disabled begging in the streets. In so many places, she’d told me, there were no jobs, little food or medicine, and even more meager hope.

Aunt Florencia had described the homes made from used tires and cardboard, no running water, no heat. Who wouldn’t risk everything to give their children a better life than that?

I hopped out with Raul and María just as Alejandro and Rosa were pulling up next to Raul’s car. We all took a box from the back of Alejandro’s truck, and I followed them to one of the run-down buildings where we deposited the boxes of food onto tables in the middle of the room.

Alejandro talked to a woman who seemed to be running the place in some capacity, and she went with us to the truck as we carried in the last of the boxes. “She’s the camp manager,” Rosa said as she set the final box down next to the one I’d carried in. “Her name is Becca Jones. She’s a wonderful advocate for the people who live here. So many are unemployed right now because of the drought and the crops farmers weren’t able to plant last year. And even some who have work have trouble feeding their families on what they make.”