Chapter 12 - The Harvest Dinner
The annual harvest dinner had always been Miguel Reyes’s favorite tradition.
Long tables.
Workers beside managers.
Families beside cellar staff.
No reserved seats.
No speeches longer than five minutes.
The year Miguel died, Isabel almost canceled it.
Luis had refused.
“Your father would come back and haunt us.”
This year, she considered canceling again.
She did not.
The vineyard had survived enough secrecy.
It needed something communal.
Camila brought Sofia.
Before arriving, she asked Isabel whether it was safe.
“Yes,” Isabel said. “Helena won’t be here.”
Sofia entered carrying a folded drawing.
She had not been to Reyes Vineyard since the cellar confrontation.
Isabel knelt to her level.
“You okay?”
Sofia nodded.
Then shook her head.
“Grandma says you’re mad because of my video.”
Isabel’s chest tightened.
“I’m not mad at you.”
“I recorded her.”
“You were making your own video. Adults were responsible for what they said.”
Sofia looked uncertain.
“If I didn’t record it, would everybody still be lying?”
Isabel chose her words carefully.
“Maybe for longer.”
“So it was good?”
“It helped.”
Sofia waited.
“But it was not your job to fix us.”
The girl looked down.
Isabel touched the edge of the drawing.
“What’s that?”
Sofia unfolded it.
A picture of the vineyard terrace.
The cellar door was open.
All the people stood outside.
Nobody was trapped.
Isabel had to look away.
“That’s beautiful.”
“Can I put it in the cellar?”
“Yes.”
Later.
Not now.
The harvest dinner unfolded beneath strings of lights.
For a few hours, lawsuits receded.
Teresa’s husband played guitar badly.
Luis told the same story about Miguel dropping an entire tray of samples in front of a famous critic.
People laughed.
Isabel watched them.
This was what Helena claimed she was protecting at Laurent Cellars.
People.
Jobs.
Memory.
Isabel understood that instinct.
What she rejected was the idea that protecting one community required violating another.
Julian arrived late.
He had been invited by Luis, not Isabel.
For a moment, she considered asking him to leave.
Then Sofia ran to hug him.
Isabel let him stay.
He sat near the far end of the table.
They barely spoke.
Near dessert, Luis tapped a glass.
Isabel glared at him.
“No speeches.”
“Three minutes.”
“Two.”
He raised his glass.
“To the first half of harvest.”
Everyone cheered.
“To the people who showed up when rumors said we were finished.”
Louder cheers.
“And to the boss, who has finally learned her father was not always right.”
Isabel shouted, “You’re fired.”
Everyone laughed.
Luis grinned.
“See? Healing.”
The dinner ended after midnight.
As workers left, Julian approached Isabel.
“I’m glad you held it.”
“So am I.”
He looked toward Sofia, asleep against Camila’s shoulder.
“I spoke to Voss.”
Isabel’s expression changed.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Why?”
“He called me.”
“What did he want?”
“To warn me that if I testify, he’ll produce emails showing I participated in the consolidation plan.”
“He already produced some.”
“He says there are worse ones.”
“Are there?”
Julian looked at her.
“Yes.”
Her stomach tightened.
“What did you write?”
“Last January, I told him I could get you to sign before spring.”
Isabel’s face went still.
“What else?”
“I said you trusted me more than your lawyers.”
The words hurt because they matched Helena’s recording.
He continued.
“And I told him not to show you the loan documents until after you had agreed to the ownership structure.”
Isabel looked away.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because he thinks I’ll protect myself.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
She turned back.
“You keep saying the right thing after doing the wrong thing.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He flinched.
She lowered her voice.
“I loved you enough that I would have listened if you had come to me honestly. I might have helped Laurent.”
Julian closed his eyes.
“I know.”
She almost shouted.
Instead, she whispered, “That is the tragedy.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“You didn’t need to manipulate me.”
The truth of it seemed to hit him harder than accusation.
She continued.
“You might have gotten help. Maybe not land. Maybe financing. Maybe a water contract. Maybe introductions to investors.”
“I was afraid you’d say no.”
“And you decided that fear was more important than my right to choose.”
“Yes.”
A long silence.
Julian finally said, “There’s something else.”
Isabel almost laughed.
“There always is.”
“Voss mentioned an email from your father.”
She froze.
“To whom?”
“My mother.”
“What email?”
“I don’t know. He said it proves Miguel once offered the north parcel as part of a settlement.”
Isabel’s pulse quickened.
“That would contradict everything in his files.”
“I know.”
“Do you believe it exists?”
“I don’t know.”
The next morning, Maya received it in discovery.
An email dated twenty-one years earlier.
Purportedly from Miguel Reyes to Helena Laurent.
If André releases his claims, I will convey the north tract and water rights to Laurent family ownership.
Isabel stared at the printout.
Maya said nothing.
The address was Miguel’s old business email.
The formatting looked plausible.
Helena’s lawyers would use it to argue that the north parcel had long been intended for the Laurent family.
It did not justify forging Isabel’s deed.
But it complicated the story of motive and ownership history.
Then Isabel noticed the date.
She remembered something from her father’s files.
“Wait.”
She pulled out her phone and called Luis.
“When did Dad’s original winery office burn?”
Luis sounded confused.
“What?”
“The electrical fire. What year?”
“Two thousand four.”
“What month?”
“February.”
Isabel looked at the email.
It was dated May 2004.
The sender address used a domain Reyes Vineyard did not register until 2006.
She looked at Maya.
“This email is fake.”
Maya’s eyes sharpened.
“Are you certain?”
“No.”
Isabel remembered her attorney’s favorite lesson.
May you like
“But I know where to start proving it.”
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