The backyard of the house in Villa Elisa had been the first thing to improve, and Luis had started there just because it was the only thing Gaspar had mentioned. Without too much enthusiasm, and it wasn’t a request—he didn’t ask for anything in those first days—he’d said it would be nice to have a garden. Surprised, Luis remembered the postcards his brother had sent him when he went to have an operation in London, where the treatment options were better. Juan had always talked about the gardens and flowers and the English green; he sent photos of old, secret gardens, of public parks, and also of buildings and castles and churches. He’d thought they were very odd postcards coming from a boy who, though he did have physical limitations, was living it up in one of the world’s capitals. He decided not to show the postcards to Gaspar, not yet, but instead set to work: he broke up the cement and tiles, bought dirt and grass, dusted off some ideas from a landscaping class he’d taken in Río, and spent afternoons at the nursery choosing plants that were already grown. He thought about adding a pool, but didn’t have enough money. A canvas one would have to do. Plus, he would rather Gaspar go to the club to swim: it was better for him to get out of the house, and that was also what Isabel recommended. He and Gaspar had fun fixing up the garden. The kid was very good at following instructions, and he liked repetitive tasks. Luis thought they helped give him structure, and he understood, because he felt the same way.

With Gaspar’s improvement came some adjustments. Luis tried to make him understand that if he wanted money, he had to ask for it, but Gaspar took that instruction as a mere suggestion. When his weekly allowance ran out, he would go into Luis’s room and take what he wanted from the drawer. And sometimes he took too much. He didn’t ask for help with anything: if he wanted to get something that was out of his reach, he climbed; if one of his buttons fell off, he sewed it back on, and he sewed Luis’s while he was at it. That was good, endearing. But if he went into La Plata and it got late or he felt tired, he would take a taxi back: it was several kilometers, the taxi was really expensive, and they couldn’t afford it. Even worse: sometimes he didn’t come back until very late, in the early hours of the morning, and when he arrived and found Luis awake and anxious, he’d ask what was wrong, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for a mentally ill fourteen-year-old to stay out all night. If Luis scolded him, he shrugged his shoulders, not exactly with rebellion or indifference, but with a genuine lack of understanding. He couldn’t comprehend why he shouldn’t come home late, or why it worried others when he did. He cooked—always simple dishes, but he did it well: pasta with sauce, ham and cheese empanadas, and sometimes he ventured painstakingly into a potato pie, a Spanish omelette, a sponge cake, oven-baked hake with cheese. But he didn’t clean the kitchen or change the sheets or clear the table, nor did it occur to him to pitch in on weekends with a mop and bucket. He’s a rich kid, Julieta told Luis whenever he got angry.