Rodrigo had shown him how to fish when his own father drank himself into oblivion every day. Rodrigo had been there to comfort him when he’d accidentally seen his parents having sex one night and had been left lost and confused at the complicated barrage of emotions it whipped up in him. He’d felt great shame until Rodrigo told him it was natural, that he had nothing to feel guilty about in witnessing the act or in the way it made him feel. It was then, at age seven, that Rodrigo told him the truth of his secret birth. It was the best day of his life, the day he learned who he really was. Rodrigo had had an affair with his mom that lasted less than a year and ended when his first wife, Dorina, died. Shortly after, his mother realized that not only was she pregnant, but that the baby was Rodrigo’s, not the man she’d married who drank so heavily each night he’d never remember that they hadn’t slept together in months.

Rodrigo told him it was best that no one knew his real father lived just down the street, and Jack should go on living as he always had. And since Jack and Frank were already such good friends from their fishing trips, Rodrigo had brought Frank in on their secret. They had always made Jack feel like a Dominio. Cris, however, had been left in the dark. Rodrigo said he wasn’t like them and wouldn’t understand. Jack didn’t mind, he had never gotten close with Cris anyway. But he’d been so excited to have Frank as his new half-brother, even if no one knew but them. And since he’d inherited his mom’s aquiline features and lighter skin tone, no one ever suspected. Having a secret this big with people he looked up to made him feel special. But what he’d loved most was that the drunk who had raised him, who was listed on his birth certificate, was not his real father. Rodrigo treated him as a real son for the most part, having him over on a regular basis to hang out with Frank, even if he did have to sleep in the house down the block every night. But Rodrigo had taken him under his wing. He and Rodrigo, along with Frank, became close and were together more often than not.