“Next season,” I agreed.
That evening, we ate at his new kitchen table. Beans, rice, grilled chicken, warm tortillas, and salsa he insisted on making himself even though Camila kept telling him to sit down. He looked around between bites, still unbelieving. “It is too quiet,” he said.
“You don’t like quiet?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You’ll learn.”
He nodded. “Maybe I will buy a radio.”
“I’ll buy you one.”
He pointed his fork at me. “No. I will buy a radio. You already bought the house.”
“Yes, sir.”
His eyes softened. “Do not say sir. Say Papá.”
I tried to answer, but my throat closed. Camila reached under the table and squeezed my hand.
“Papá,” I said.
Don Ernesto looked down at his plate and smiled like a man receiving a title he had waited his whole life to hear.
The DNA truth did not remain hidden forever. Secrets have roots. If you pull one, others surface. I requested more records. Old clinic notes. My mother’s letters. Baptism documents. A cousin of hers, Aunt Teresa, finally agreed to meet after I called three times. She was in her seventies, sharp-eyed, and still carried the nervousness of people who survived families by saying little. We met in a bakery near downtown Guadalajara. She listened as I explained what I knew. Then she took a deep breath and said, “Your mother loved Ernesto until the day she died.”
read more in next page
