“Come here,” she says impatiently.

When he enters the study, Thora is sitting on the sofa, the parakeet perched on her finger. Her face is open, nervous, alive. She keeps changing, too fast for him to keep up with all the versions of her. “Hey, Urra,” she says softly. “Did you have something to say?”

“Help,” says the parakeet. “I’m trapped inside this bird.”

Thora looks up with a grin of triumph. For a moment, Santi just stares. Then he laughs, as much joy as surprise, until they are both laughing so hard they can’t breathe.

“I had to say it over and over. But it worked in the end.” She bounces in her seat, startling the bird into flying up to the bookshelves. “I want to teach her something else.”

Santi smiles and sits back, in awe at God’s work: how all his effort is nothing to a wounded bird that fell out of the sky. Thank you, he says wordlessly. Thank you for this gift.

God giveth, and God taketh away. Santi comes home the next evening to find the study empty. Heart pounding with dread, he searches the house. Through Thora’s bedroom window, he sees her in the garden, sitting on the tree stump where he talked to his mother.

He goes to stand beside her. She’s not crying. Somehow, that’s the worst part: the profound sorrow and the absence of tears, like something inside her is broken.

“I took her outside,” she mumbles. “I thought she might want some fresh air.”

“Oh, no.” Santi crouches down to her level. “When?”

“This morning. She still hasn’t come back.” Her voice is tight. “What was the point? If she was just going to fly away?”

This is the test, Santi realizes: not the nurturing, but the letting go. To take all the love and effort and detach it from yourself, no matter what vital organs get ripped out in the process. He takes Thora’s hand. “There was always a risk she might. But does that mean it wasn’t worth it?”

Thora snatches her hand away. “Stop it. You’re doing that thing, where you ask me questions and make it seem like I’m making my own decisions, but really you’re just telling me the answers. Go on. Tell me.”

Santi can’t help raising his voice. “You need to be proud of what you did. She wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you.”

“Then I wish I’d let her die.”