“We’re going to lower the dosage,” she said. “I can’t make a diagnosis in the first meeting, but I can try a different approach. Also, I don’t want you to force him to come to the sessions. He needs to come, but you should act as though you weren’t forcing him. Keep talking about it. Let him feel you’re worried. Talk about it every day.”

Luis talked about it so much he was left exhausted: by Gaspar’s sobbing, by the violence of his screams. But that wasn’t the worst part, and neither was Gaspar’s horrible thinness, which, Luis thought, if not for the fact that the country was a hellscape of power outages, protests, hyperinflation, and early elections, and that no one from the juvenile court ever visited them (maybe they were on strike?), would have merited urgent intervention from a social worker. The worst had been one day when they’d had a strange, nearly silent argument, and afterward Gaspar had started to go back to his room—as he did every day; he spent too much time lying down, in bed or on the living-room sofa—but then stopped in the doorway, motionless. From the hallway, Luis saw that the boy’s knees were giving out, and he ran to catch him before he collapsed to the floor. He didn’t faint but he was drenched in sweat, even though the autumn afternoon was pretty cold. Luis, as he embraced him, felt how his body was shaking.

“Dad is in my room, don’t go in,” Gaspar told him.

Luis picked him up. He weighs less than a chair, he thought, and he carried Gaspar out to the yard because he couldn’t think what else to do. Still, he couldn’t help but steal a quick glance through the open door into the bedroom, and he swore he saw the intimidating, unmistakable figure of his younger brother, a flash of blond hair and his broad shoulders, long fingers, arms hanging down by his side. Unnerved, he sat on the garden bench and cradled the boy. You’re going to be okay, you’re going to be okay, until the boy interrupted him, unexpectedly:

“Quit lying.”

“You are going to be okay, Gaspar, I’m going to help you.”

“It was him. It’s better when he comes. Adela comes at night. She waves at me. They ate her face.”

“There’s no one else in the house, it’s just the two of us.”