Santi’s crying by the time he finishes reading. He passes the tablet to Héloïse. “You’re going to need a drink.” He goes to make her one, leaving her with their daughter’s life story.

They repaint the room they’ve already started calling Thora’s from light green to purple. Santi buys glow-in-the-dark paint and brushes careful stars onto the ceiling in patterns that mimic real constellations.

It’s late spring by the time they’re allowed to bring her home. When Santi unlocks the door, Félicette startles into flight. Thora pauses on the threshold, uncertain.

“Your room’s upstairs,” says Héloïse. “The door’s open. Want to go and look?”

Thora nods and creaks warily up the stairs. The two of them follow, expectant and afraid.

“No way!” Thora yells in delight. “Stars!”

Once, back in Spain, Santi’s sister Aurelia brought home a street cat with a torn ear. For the first few weeks, it barely left the upstairs room where she kept it, afraid to encounter the unfamiliar giants who roamed the halls. Thora, too, keeps to her starry room, emerging only for meals, which she eats in silence. Santi tries to bring her out, cracking bad jokes and showing her silly doodles, but she barely responds. Only Héloïse is favored with her rare smiles.

“What happened to her?” Santi asks Héloïse after Thora slinks upstairs. “That funny girl? That girl who loved her room so much she yelled?”

“She’s not here to entertain us,” Héloïse points out as she clears the plates. “She hasn’t even decided if she likes us or not.”

“She likes you,” Santi says. “It’s only me she has a problem with.”

Héloïse shrugs. “That’s because I’m better than you.”

She’s trying to make him laugh. It almost works. But it still hurts that Thora’s indifference has a focus, and it is him.

Santi sighs and wraps his arms around his wife. He moves her braids aside to kiss the back of her neck.

Héloïse twists around in his arms, strokes his face. “Patience,” she says. “We have to give her meaning before she can give it back to us.”

Santi stays in the kitchen after she leaves, pondering her words. He thought they were adopting Thora to provide her with the stability she needs. But maybe it’s not really about what she needs. Maybe this troubled girl is nothing but a distraction, a consolation prize for his own discarded dreams.

That night, he dreams of drowning in a hospital bed. He wakes, heart pounding, staring at his blank ceiling as if someone has taken the universe away. On his way back from the bathroom, he’s passing Thora’s room when he hears her voice.

He goes closer. “Thora? Did you say something?”