Chapter Five
Sofia and Manny walked through the house, escorting her grandmother outside to the inner courtyard. The heat was starting to get to the frail woman. Sofia had offered to walk her to her room where it was much cooler, but she told Sofia it was her duty to play hostess regardless of how hard Sofia protested. The constant stream of condolences was almost more than Sofia could bear, and she wondered how her grandmother kept offering a smile and a kind word to everyone who stopped to speak to her.
Even out in the open area of the courtyard, the noise was deafening. The energy was low but expected, the crowd made up mostly of workers from the factories and the fields. They rarely socialized together except for the annual holiday party and the big Huerta picnic that Don Roberto ins
