Now all those tiny dead things twitch.
Alejandro watches your face closely. “How old are you?”
The question jolts you. “Twenty-seven.”
He calculates instantly. Too old. Too young. Not old enough to be the original missing child’s mother by blood. Which means if Nico is what his face suggests, then the path between one maternity ward and your arms runs through someone else.
You say it before he can.
“I gave birth to him.”
He nods, almost with relief. “Then he’s yours.”
The correction matters.
It is the first thing he has said that lowers your pulse instead of raising it.
Still, he adds, very carefully, “But that may not be the whole story.”
A rich man saying that to a homeless mother in a marble lobby could mean a hundred bad things. Yet the grief in him keeps interrupting the worst interpretations. He looks like a man trying not to frighten a skittish animal while standing too close to a miracle.
The desk woman appears at the edge of the room, uncertain whether to interrupt. He turns without taking his eyes fully off your son.
“Bring blankets,” he says. “And soup. Now.”
It is not tenderness in his tone. It is command. But command used in service of children is still better than suspicion. The woman hurries off.
You realize, suddenly and violently, how hungry you are.
No. Not hungry.
Past hunger.
At the edge of collapse where food becomes almost theoretical because the body is too busy burning through fear. Alma sways slightly. You guide her to one of the lobby chairs at last. It feels obscene to sit in it wet, but obscenity has already happened in more consequential ways tonight.
Nico begins coughing again.
Alejandro’s entire body reacts to the sound.
He catches himself, but too late. You see him take one involuntary step forward, the step of a father whose child once disappeared and another once died. Your own protective instincts flash up at once.
“Stay back.”
He stops immediately.
