Dad rarely told anybody anything.
The inspector, whose name I had finally remembered was Aaron Pike, stood near the garden gate watching people disperse among the rows.
There were perhaps thirty of them now.
An elderly man in suspenders.
Two young women speaking Spanish to each other as they picked tomatoes.
A middle-aged man wearing paint-stained work pants.
A grandmother with a cane directing two teenage boys toward the squash.
None looked like they were attending a demonstration.
No signs.
No angry speeches.
No television cameras.
They were simply harvesting food.
Aaron looked at Dad.
“Mr. Lindqvist, what exactly is happening here?”
Dad lifted his bucket.
“Saturday.”
Aaron waited.
Dad apparently believed that was sufficient.
I stepped closer to Elena.
“Do you come here every week?”
She looked at me as though I had asked whether the sun rose in the east.
“During the season.”
“For how long?”
“Four years.”
