My stomach clenches. I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking that it’s not fair that I got named after our father’s mother. And it’s not, is it? I don’t know what to say. The photo in my hand feels, suddenly, like the reason I’m here in the woods in California. To find this picture. To see this connection. To fill in a bit of the half of me that I didn’t realize was missing.

“Wonder who this is.” Mercedes has moved on to the other photo in her hand. Francisco Gómez is sitting at a table piled with dishes of food. Next to him is a young woman with long wavy hair. She’s wearing glasses, so it’s hard to see her eyes, but her nose is a familiar button shape. “A girlfriend?”

I take the photo. “That’s got to be another relative. His sister?” I turn over the photo, hoping there’s a name on the back. Francisco y Mechi.

Mercedes snorts. “What kind of name is Mechi?”

“Mechi,” I repeat, tasting the word. Mechi. Mercedes. Mechi. “I bet it’s a nickname for Mercedes.”

“Yeah, right.” Mercedes shakes her head like I’ve lost it. “I’m named after the wife of Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian writer. Mom tells me that all the time.”

“But you could be named for both. Just like me?” I say as I paw through the other photos. “I bet you’re named after his sister.” I pick up another picture. “Look, here she is again.”

The back of the picture just has the name: Mechi. The photo shows the same woman but without the long hair. Her head is wrapped in a pink-and-red scarf and her face is pale and thin.

“This must be the same woman. His sister would be our aunt, Mercedes. Maybe you’re named after her.”

She shakes her head but then slides both photos of Mechi into her back pocket. “I’m keeping these.”

I think of the book, the pen, the piece of paper. What’s another theft? “I will, too,” I say. I take the photo of Francisco’s mom—my grandmother? Matilde.

Mercedes climbs back into the hammock. She doesn’t look at me or say anything. I sit back down at Francisco’s desk and try out the green pen on one of the yellow sticky notes. I write my full name: Matilde Flora Gómez. Then I write Francisco Gómez Flores. The scratching of the pen and the whirring of air-conditioning are the only sounds for a while.

Suddenly Mercedes breaks the silence. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asks.

“That life is strange?”