Dad read the letter in silence.
Then he sat down.
“Manuel?” Mom whispered.
He looked at Derek.
Then at me.
“The house wasn’t the only thing your grandfather left us.”
I felt the old mystery opening again.
Dad unfolded the hand-drawn map across Derek’s workbench.
A circle had been drawn around a property on the northern edge of Carmona.
I recognized the road.
What I did not recognize was the name written beneath it.
RUIZ BROTHERS WORKSHOP — FOR THE DAY THEY ARE READY.
I looked at Derek.
He looked just as confused as I was.
Dad touched the faded ink.
Then he said the sentence that changed the question we had been asking since I arrived.
“Your grandfather never intended this house to become your inheritance.”
He looked at the map.
“He intended us to build something else together.”
PART 3
For several seconds, nobody touched the map.
It lay across Derek’s workbench beneath a thin layer of afternoon light, the paper browned at the folds.
