Over the following months, the investigation moved fast. Tristan’s father admitted to paying massive bribes to city officials. Mara was prosecuted for laundering money through her fake companies.

Tristan gave the prosecutors critical information for a reduced sentence, but it didn’t spare him serious charges of fraud and criminal conspiracy.

Part of the recovered money went to back wages for the workers who’d been cheated. My father received a large compensation check for years of illegal deductions.

When the officials handed it to him, he held it as if it weighed a ton.

“This money doesn’t give me back my lost years,” he said softly. “But God willing, maybe it keeps others from going through the same thing.”

Shawn kept coming by. For those first weeks he never raised the subject of marriage again. He’d go with my father to the market, help him fix the old truck, sit and listen to his long stories.