…”me. Gilberto Reyes. With this pen.”
He took it out of his shirt pocket and set it on the tablecloth. A plain black fountain pen, worn silver at the clip.
Marcus stared at it. “My dad’s station? The Alvarez station?”
“Your grandfather, Ernesto Alvarez, lent me two hundred dollars for seed in 1962,” Pop said. “I was twenty, and nobody else would. I paid him back in a year, with interest he wouldn’t take. In 1988, when the bank came for his son’s station, I figured it was my turn.”
He’d sold his only tractor that spring. He farmed the next two seasons with a borrowed one and a mule. He’d signed a note for the rest, and paid it off over seven years. He’d asked the bank never to tell the Alvarez family who it was.
“Your mother thinks it was a family friend,” Pop said gently. “It was. I just didn’t need her to know which one.”
Nobody at that table moved. My cousin had her hand over her mouth. Marcus looked at the pen like it might bite him.
“Why are you telling me now?” he finally asked. His voice had gone quiet.
Pop shrugged. “You asked if I’d ever done anything with my life. I thought you should have a complete answer.”
Then he picked up his fork and went back to his enchiladas.
Marcus called his father from the restaurant parking lot. I could see him through the window, pacing, his phone pressed to his ear, then just standing still. His father, it turned out, had spent thirty-six years wondering who’d saved his business. When he found out, he drove three hours to the farm the very next morning and sat with Pop on the porch until dark.
Marcus came out to the farm two weeks later, alone, without his phone. He asked Pop if he could help with the harvest. Pop handed him a pair of gloves and said, “Circle back at five a.m.”
He showed up at four-forty-five. He’s been back every fall since. He’s a terrible farmer. Pop says he’s getting better.
