“I am sorry to have to give you this bad news,” the officer said. “Now that your daughter has fled the country to be with her mother, you may never see either of them again.”

Elena called to thank Mauro for the Virgin statue he’d sent, for the photographs and for the letter he’d tucked into the envelope with them. He waited for her to say more, but she was quiet. Then she thanked him for the years he’d cared for Talia. Said every day was a revelation of who she was as a young woman. Despite the distance and years apart, she’d somehow convinced herself she knew their daughter well. Now she understood that child was fiction. The daughter Elena was getting to know was smarter, wiser, as lovely and self-governing as a wildflower.

Without Talia between them now, Mauro worried the threads that bound him and Elena would fray to nothing. He felt a dam of urgency break in him.

“I’ll find a way back.” He didn’t know if she understood or if she would even believe him. He only hoped that when he made it to the other side, she would be waiting.

The apartment was packed and ready for its next occupancy. The boxes with the few things that mattered to them held in a storage unit where he’d paid the year in advance. After Talia left, Mauro did months of research. Enough time had passed since his deportation that he could apply for legal reentry. He submitted the paperwork and was approved for an appointment at the US embassy, which gave him hope that his past offenses might be pardoned. He took the day off and wore his best clothes, brought a file of photos of his family and copies of Nando’s and Talia’s birth certificates. He told the consular officer he had two US-born children and his deportation had caused substantial hardship on their mother. He’d read about another deported father in Nicaragua with a similar family situation who was granted a special waiver with the help of some advocacy group. But Mauro still had no sponsor waiting for him on the other side and now had nothing in Colombia proving any incentive to return. His request was refused. He could reapply, the officer said, or wait until his American children were old enough to petition for a parent visa, but the arrests on Mauro’s record made it unlikely he’d ever be granted entry again.

He considered other potential routes. First to the United States by way of Canada, but ruled it out when he learned the two countries share immigration information. A flight to Jamaica or the Bahamas since neither required visas of Colombians. Or by boat to Panama through the Darién Gap and San Blas Islands, by bus and train the rest of the way north. The more he stared at those borders on maps, the more absurd it seemed that outsiders succeeded in declaring possession of these lands with national lines, as if Creation could ever be divided and owned.