Together, they nursed Perla. Talia tried to wake her sleeping mind with the stories she’d raised her on, like the one about the boy Perla knew in childhood who ate seeds and grew watermelons in his belly that a farmer cut out of him every spring and then sewed him back up for the next harvest. Or about Eutémia, the distant cousin who brushed her hair so much that vanity turned it blue and she had to cut it all off.

Talia’s favorite story was of Don Ismael, who lived on the banks of the Río Magdalena and could wave his hands in the air to make rain start or stop in order to control the river swells and floods. Talia longed for his powers, wishing he could restore her grandmother’s memory, resurrect her dying body the same way he could draw water from the sky.

When she returned to the motorcycle, she found Aguja waiting, hands at his sides, and got the feeling this might be goodbye. He’d already taken her as far as he agreed. She pulled the French guy’s wallet out of her pocket and handed it to him.

“I was thinking we could go a bit farther together,” he said. “Chiquinquirá is only about fifty kilometers south. My mother will kill me if she finds out I was so close and didn’t stop to light a candle in her name. You can come with me if you want. I mean, it’s still on your way. From there I’m sure you can find a bus to take you to the capital.”

Soon it would be dark. Night in the mountains was nothing like in the city, forever aglow with eight million lives, car beams, apartment windows, and streetlights.

“I’ll go with you, but I can’t pay any more than what I’ve already offered you.”

“I know.”

He mounted the motorcycle, and Talia arranged herself around him once again. When they returned to the road, silenced by the engine throb and rumble, she rested her cheek against his shoulder blade, shutting her eyes to the wind.

EIGHTEEN

Someone recommended Elena for a cleaning job in a town flanking the Hudson. It was a big house down a forested road, up a winding path behind an iron gate. Ivory-shingled with coned roofs, somehow inspired by château architecture without being completely tacky. The bosses were a married couple with generations of money behind them and a son who seemed to hate everyone except Elena. Soon the couple asked her to swap cleaning to be his nanny instead. It went so well that they asked Elena to move in and outfitted the cottage at the back of their property for her family. It was bigger and had more bedrooms than any basement or apartment she and the children had ever lived in. Residing in the bosses’ town also meant a better school system for her kids.

Her charge, Lance, is now twelve. Every morning, Elena helps him get ready to take the bus to a school for children like him, and waits for him by the gate every afternoon when he gets dropped off. He doesn’t speak much, but when he does there is a lot of yelling. He doesn’t like to be touched by anyone, even his parents, but he will hold Elena’s hand.