“Nothing.” I don’t show Mercedes the paper. Or tell her about my book. But I do slip the paper into my pocket.

We dig through the filing cabinet and scan the bookshelves. Mercedes finds a coat hanging on the back of the door and goes through the pockets. There’s a rumpled dollar bill that she gives to me. More crime.

“If only Manuel King hadn’t emptied the trash,” she says. “That’s where the mouse and rat always find clues.”

“How about these?” I scan the bookshelves. Of course, there are many books with the word “anthropology” in the titles. A stack of magazines is about to slide off the shelf. I straighten it. A book on phylogenetic analysis (whatever that is) rests precariously on the top. I pick it up and something flutters to the floor.

Mercedes drops to her knees. “Photos,” she says in a whisper.

We reach for the photos. I turn one over in my hand. It’s Francisco Gómez, looking about the same as he does in the picture I have of him. He’s standing with a woman whose white hair is cut neatly around her ears. He has his arm around her and her face wrinkles in a smile. They have the same toffeebrown skin and squinty eyes. Eyes like mine. Eyes like Mercedes’s.

“I bet that’s our grandmother,” she says, leaning over my shoulder. I feel that invisible thread connecting us.

A shiver goes up my spine. Our grandmother? My Grandma Barbara went to an assisted living home after Grandpa died. She’s forgotten a lot of things, maybe even her own daughter. We didn’t see her very often. And now that we moved, I’m not sure when we will again. “I wonder what her name is.”

“Look at this one.” Mercedes shows me another picture. This one has the same woman looking a little less wrinkled, alongside a man in a white-brimmed hat. She flips the photo over. “Mami y Papá,” she reads. “Matilde Flores and Arturo Gómez.”

We look at each other. “That’s my name.” I take the photo and flip it over again.

“That’s his parents.” Mercedes stares at the people who are our grandparents. “I never met Mom’s parents. They both died before I was born.”

“I thought I was named after Pablo Neruda’s wife. The poet. He’s a poet that my mom likes.”

“Guess you have a family name,” Mercedes says, breaking the thread.