Forget Me Not (Love in the Fleet) by Heather Ashby Page B

live so far from the town, something they must do in order to grow the specialized crop.
    Hector knew about the “eyes in the sky” that scoped out the coca fields near towns, and then the “birds” that would arrive, los helicópteros , dropping their poison. He’d moved away from the village and planted smaller fields. These he cut and carved out of hillsides in the jungle, making them more difficult for government agents to detect with their spy planes.
    Hector’s world consisted of planting the coca shrubs, then stripping the leaves by hand. The harvested leaves were immediately sun-dried on blue tarpaulins on his open-air patios. His wife and children performed that task. The leaves needed to be dry enough to be broken up with their fingers. Often he raked them to hasten the drying process. If the weather turned, as it often did late in the day in the jungle, he would pull the tarps inside before the leaves got wet. If they were exposed to excessive heat or humidity, the leaves would rapidly decompose and his entire crop would be for naught. During the drying process, the fresh leaves lost more than half their weight as the water evaporated. This made transportation easier. The cocaine content in the dry leaves was stable as long as he kept them cool and dry.
    Hector did not stay in any one location for long, moving every few years. His motto became, “Use it and lose it.” After several successful seasons of growth, the land would be stripped of all nutrients and would become worthless for coca growth, or probably anything else for that matter. He would simply move to a new hillside when the current one wore out or the hill slid away after the rainy season.
    He did not like the idea of moving his children away from their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, and their cousins. He remembered the happy times he’d shared with his extended family growing up, surrounded by them. Their love, their warmth, and their discipline. As strong a part of his life as his own parents. But he also remembered the pangs of hunger that kept him awake at night, the abject poverty that knit his large family together as strongly as did the love.
    His children would never know hunger or the humiliation of showing up at church in patched clothing, often barefoot—especially the teens when their feet grew too fast to keep them in shoes. He remembered the shoes his cousins had handed down to him, sporting holes or sandals where his toes hung over the ends. His children would always wear shoes that fit their feet properly. After they had been passed down to the last child, the shoes would be sent to the orphanage. Food in his children’s bellies, new shoes for their feet, and joy on their faces.
    This was why Hector Morales grew coca.
    All of this flashed through his mind as he queued up to deliver his goods. Finally, he was recognized and his boat was directed to the front of the line. He would deliver his goods to the boss man and where it went next he did not know and he did not care. He’d receive the pesos he deserved and be on his way. Hector slid his boat up to the rustic pier, hoisted his bundles to his shoulders, and stepped ashore.
    Chapter 7

    Daisy slipped her backpack from her shoulders and shoved off from the rustic pier. She marveled at how good it felt to hold a paddle in her hands once again. The water was smooth and quiet with only the occasional fish jumping, as they sliced their way through the marsh toward the ocean.
    She hadn’t ventured near a kayak since Jack left for Afghanistan well over two years ago. Yet she hadn’t had the heart to remove the rack from the roof of her Jeep, as if she might take one of the boats out at any time. Maybe she should have gone kayaking alone these past two years. What better way to bond with Jack’s spirit than to spend the day doing something they had once loved to do together?
    Maybe that’s why she hadn’t done it.
    Perhaps she was afraid of what Jack’s spirit might