“True,” Vera said. “Griff wants to include the more colorful aspects of Joe. To tell what it was like before there was this political correctness. Before—” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Oh, how I want to go with him! To relive everything from the beginning. To—” She looked at her husband’s expression. “Okay, I’m going to stay here and Griff is going to send me every word he writes. I’m going to add things and tell more, whatever he needs.”

Miguel turned to their daughter. “And he’s sending me photos of places as they are now. I wasn’t there when Joe was with Vera, but we’ve been to some of the same places. We’ll do some then-and-now spreads.”

“That sounds very interesting,” Mike said.

Vera was looking at her daughter. “We waited until this was agreed on before telling you. We need your help.”

“Me? What can I do? Besides, Mom keeps me busy with the trees, and Dad always has a zillion things for me to do, and—”

Vera smiled sweetly. “If you can’t do this, then maybe I will go with him.” Miguel looked at his daughter hard.

Mike was still feeling hurt. She sighed. “I’d love to do whatever I can. So where is this guy? What’s his name? Gary?”

“Griff. Joseph Griffin Harding. His mother told me he’s been fascinated by his grandfather since he was a kid. I wish Joe had lived to see him.”

“So when’s he coming?”

“Next week sometime.” Vera looked in the direction of the carnival. “I don’t think he wants to attend some local festival, and certainly not a wedding.”

“He sounds like a very serious person,” Mike said.

Vera sighed happily. “He is. For the last year he’s been traveling through South America. Wherever he went, he filmed and wrote about indigenous people. Not one of those ‘see how miserable these people are because they don’t own a three-bed, two-bath house.’ It’s about what we can learn from them. It’s going to be a six-part documentary and Netflix has already bought it.”

“Wow, that sounds impressive.”

Miguel smiled at what his wife was saying. “Griff is a great guy. We’ve spent a lot of time with him and know him well. He’s accomplished a lot. When he got out of high school he spent two years traveling around the US, taking odd jobs and talking to people and filming it all.”

“He has a knack for getting people to confess truths to him.” Vera’s voice was full of admiration.

“He didn’t go to college?” Mike took a drink of her lemonade. An ugly feeling was beginning to fill her. Could it be jealousy? “He should have gone to school.”