"Well?" Rosa asked, her dark eyes locking onto Leo. "What did the city man want?"
Leo looked around the room. He saw the anxious faces of his family. He saw the legacy in his mother's eyes, and the exhaustion in his own reflection in the dark window. "If we sell," Leo said softly, "Casagrande disappears." Casagrande
A collective gasp went around the table. Elena put a hand to her mouth. To a family that lived season to season, it was an unimaginable fortune. He saw the legacy in his mother's eyes,
But as Leo looked down at the house, the conflict in his chest felt like physical weight. To a family that lived season to season,
That morning, a developer from Los Angeles had handed Leo a contract. The number on the bottom line was staggering—more money than the ranch had generated in the last decade. It was enough to pay off the mounting debts, secure his parents' retirement, and allow Leo to finally start a life that didn’t involve waking up at four in the morning to fix broken irrigation lines.
He smiled, a slow, genuine thing that reached his eyes for the first time all day. With deliberate slowness, Leo picked up the contract, tore it straight down the middle, and tossed the pieces into the center of the table.
"I think," Leo said, looking at his mother, "that we have a few more seasons left in us."