She squeezed his hand tightly, then withdrew it. Silence fell, and Héctor watched as her face twisted up. It was a quick flash, and then she shook her head.

“What is it, Abuela?” he asked.

“Es nada,” she said, dismissing him with a wave.

He snatched his abuela’s paper plate from her. “I thought this was La Panadería de la Verdad,” he joked. “Where’s the honesty?”

But there was no humor on Abuela Sonia’s face. She looked away from Héctor, and he recognized what was happening: She was ashamed. Bashful. Shy.

Was this what his face had looked like earlier that day, right before he told Sal and Juliana the truth?

What on earth did she have to be shy about?

“Héctor, that wasn’t what I meant,” she said. “At all. I was just talking about what hobbies you could have started.”

“But . . .” Héctor sighed in exasperation. “This whole time, I thought you would be disappointed in me if I asked for help!”

“Oh, nieto, never!” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry you thought that’s what I meant. Héctor, you can always ask people for help. That doesn’t make you a bad person, or weak, and it certainly would never disappoint me.”

He put his head in his hands. “I’ve been so worried!”

“No,” Abuela Sonia said, shaking her head, and now her eyes were watery and red. “No, this is my fault.”

“What? No! I’ll figure this out.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I just . . . I just thought that the world would have gotten easier for kids like you. I didn’t expect my little Héctor to still be struggling with this sort of stuff, too.”

He sat upright, put his mantecada down. “Struggling with what stuff?” he asked.

Abuela Sonia finally looked at him. Her eyes were red and glassy, and the lights of the panadería illuminated the tracks of her tears down her cheeks. “Oh, mi amor, why do you think your abuelo left me all those years ago?”

His heart thumped fiercely in his chest. “I don’t know. I never really asked Papi about it. He just told me that Abuelo fell in love with someone else, and that divorce happens sometimes.”

She smiled then. “He’s not wrong. Eventually, Esteban did fall in love again, and he’s married now. I’m very happy for him. Honestly.”

Héctor took a sip of his hot chocolate. “Then what do you mean?”

She let out a long breath. “Papito, I was the one who fell in love with someone else first.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyebrows creasing together as he tried to comprehend what he’d just heard.

“With a woman,” she added.

His mouth fell open.

His heart raced faster.

And his eyes watered up.

“So . . . you’re like . . . ,” Héctor began.

He couldn’t even finish the sentence. He put his hand on his chest.