The steps of the church and the courtyard swarmed with animal life. Twin black terriers, white and pink puppies, golden puppies, brown puppies, beagles, mongrels, retrievers like Barney, and cats, mundane and exotic, sat in strollers and quivered on leashes. There were monarch butterflies, frogs and salamanders in glass boxes in their owners’ arms, and crates bearing pets we could not identify from where we stood. The white-robed ministers were all women. They dipped their sprigs into bowls of holy water to bless the animals with beatific smiles: long life and good health to all. Choral music poured from the cathedral face, piercing to the part of myself where spiritual yearning was stored.

“Dad?”

He was righting Barney’s ear. “Going on fourteen and you wouldn’t be caught dead in a stroller, would you, old man?”

“Dad.”

He straightened up and gave me his attention.

“I wanted to talk to you about something I found in Maddy’s room.”

“What’s that?”

I pulled a manila envelope from my bag and removed Maddy’s first letter to Antonio. I had only brought one. It was the fact rather than the content of the exchange that mattered. I handed it to my father without a word. Dear Antonio Jorge Romero, You don’t know me . . .

I waited while he read it through, tapping the paper from underneath with his finger. “And he wrote back?”

“About thirty times.” He looked at me then, trying his best not to smile. I had planned to be direct and unemotional, but my voice trembled with accusation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

My father’s silence was maddening. He never rushed into anything. “We were in the park one day,” he said at last. “She brought it up. She thought her father rejecting her had something to do with her getting cancer.”

“How could she think that?”

“It wasn’t logical. She had this idea about the universe not wanting her. I was glad she could say it out loud.”

“Well, it’s upset me.” I blinked hard. “As you can see.”

He didn’t move or come to my aid. “It’s understandable, isn’t it? She had to find him before it was too late. I helped her out a little, that’s all.” The implication was clear: I had not helped Maddy look for her father, had I?

“But why didn’t you tell me?”

I had seen my father’s face deformed by hilarity and by grief, but seldom by guilt. After a moment, in his reasonable voice, he said: “Don’t you think you had enough to face? We were so worried about you, Eve.” He let me pluck the letter out of his hand. His voice was hoarse. “We still are.”

I waved the paper at him. “Did it never occur to you I would want to know about something like this? How terrible it would be to find out later?”