They set up a padded box in Héloïse’s study, close the door to keep Félicette out. Santi shows Thora how to feed the bird water using a pipette. He watches her stroke its feathers with fingers he’s rarely seen outside of sleeves or fists. He’s never known her so quiet, so absorbed.

Days pass, and the bird doesn’t die. Santi stops looking for Thora in her room. When he gets home, he comes straight to the study where she will inevitably be, hunched over the box, feeding the bird or watching it sleep. Sometimes she’s so enthralled that he catches an instant of how she is when he is not observing her. He hoards them, those impressions of a soft, wondering girl, like jewels. It awes him, how someone as angry and self-contained as his daughter can look after this helpless thing with such tenderness. He is watching her look after herself, in the way that he and Héloïse, with their distance and their good intentions, never can.

“I’ve decided what her name is,” she announces.

“Oh?”

She strokes the bird’s feathers carefully with the tip of her little finger. “Urraquita,” she says.

Little magpie. His Spanish nickname for her. He can’t tell her what it means, that it’s already the name of another bird. He should have known she was smart enough to figure him out.

Thora looks at him over her knees. “Is it our fault if she dies?”

Santi takes a breath. “What do you think?”

It takes Thora a long time to answer. When she does, he pretends he doesn’t hear the strain in her voice. “No. We didn’t hurt her. We’re just trying our best to make her better.”

“Right.” Santi hopes it means she’s willing to forgive them, if she’s willing to first forgive herself.

The bird recovers. A few days and it’s hopping, then flying in short bursts around the study, making Thora giggle in a way Santi has never heard before.

“You know, parakeets are good vocal learners,” he says, ducking as wings whir above his head. “You might be able to teach it to say something.”

She darts him a look. “Really?” she says suspiciously.

He nods, glad to have caught her interest. “You have to really work at it. And there are no guarantees.”

She’s barely listening. She’s focused on the bird, her busy mind already thinking of what to teach it. Santi smiles and leaves her alone to work.

He gets used to coming home and finding the study door closed. Sometimes, he hears Thora repeating something over and over, but he can’t make out the words. Until one day, the door hangs open. He pauses, wondering if he should go in.

“Santi,” Thora calls.

It’s so unusual for her to name him, let alone request his presence, that he hesitates. “Yes?”