The promise

Peter was a 20 years old student of the economy University of Tucumán. He had lived all his life in this city and he had made lots of friends. But besides all this friends there was a very special person for him: his grandfather, the father of his mother, who lived in a little town in Bs. As. called Lobería and worked in the fields. Although they had different customs and lived far away from each other there was an amazing connection between them.
Every summer holidays Peter went to Bs. As. with his family to visit the parents of his mother and he really enjoyed riding his horse and helping his grandpa with the cows the same way his grandparents loved to be visited by their grandchildren. At the mornings Peter’s grandfather would persuade him to exercise and they would share a mate. After having lunch they would go to the fields to work the cattle and see the crops and later they might play chess, game which the old man taught how to play to Peter.
Peter’s grandmother never really liked living in Lobería so despite the fact her husband loved this town he realized it was his turn to make an effort and they moved to Tucumán.
Although the country man made lots of friends in Tucumán as he was a very nice person he missed his little town so he went there from time to time.
While Peter’s grandfather was alive the farm was rented as he never allowed to sell it and the day he died he made Peter promise he would never let something bad happened to it. However, some time after his death Peter’s family was going through a terrible economic situation so although Peter refused, they sold the farm.
3 years later the new owners of the farm received an offer to sell it to a company that wanted to construct a factory there. When Peter heard this he started thinking how would his grandfather feel about it if he had been alive and he decided he wouldn’t permit the construction of the factory in the farm. However, it was not something easy as he had to buy it and although he had some money as all his life he had saved it, it was not enough.
He tried all the things he could to reach the money he needed but he failed in his try. He asked the bank, for example, to borrow him money but as he was very young and didn’t have a job they refused. Although he had said he wouldn’t permit the selling of the farm there was no way to reach the money necessary to stop it.
Peter felt he had failed to his grandpa and was very upset. Tom, a very close friend of Peter who was studying agronomy saw his friend sad and told him he had a plan to stop the demolition of the farm. It consisted on start buying it with the money Peter had and then Tom, who loved workings in the fields, would exploit the farm so they would continue paying for it with the money they earned from Peter’s friend work. So Tom would move to Lobería and exploit Peter’s grandfather farm to pay for it and when he had finished the payment Peter told him the farm would be for him.
When Tom was preparing the luggage the phone rang. It was his exgirlfriend. She told him since some days she had started having some strange symptoms, that she had just made a pregnant test and had found she was going to have a baby whose
father was him.
When Tom heard this he couldn’t believe it and although she wasn’t his girlfriend now he decided he would take care of the baby. Although he was very happy with the idea of becoming a father he was sad because the plan he had thought wouldn’t be able to be done. He told to Peter he couldn’t move to Lobería to work in the farm and Peter felt the same sensation of failing to his grandfather he had felt before.
The days passed and the farm was going to be bought by the company but Peter, remembering the promise he had made to his grandfather of not letting anything bad happened to the farm, came up with a decision that would change his life completely. Although he had not finished his career yet and had no idea about working in the fields, the love he felt towards his grandfather made him decide to start buying the farm, to move to Lobería and to do the job Tom was going to do: work in the fields to continue paying for it.
He had to leave his family, friends and career but the promise he had made to his grandpa was more important than all this.