He takes the clay cup from her. Fabiola sits back down, opposite him at the table. Eyes tunneling into him. “My husband, my son, and my grandson all worked the Chuquicamata copper mine. Made a good living. Long hours.” Pausing for effect, she presses the middle finger and thumb of her right hand together. Snap. “Taken from me like that. Muertos. Una explosión. The mine collapse on top of them.”

Jack takes a swallow and somehow keeps from grimacing. He has tasted some great Chilean red wines before. This isn’t one of them. “That is horrible,” he says. “I’m really sorry for your loss.”

“Time is all we have on this earth, Jack. Never take it for granted. Up to you how it is spent. You can wake up angry at the world every day and blame yourself, blame others, drown in self-pity. Or you can do things that make joy. Help others. Only so many breaths, heartbeats, morning views of the sun to be had.” She holds up the clay cup. “This is what you need. Let you see your pain. Sort your troubles. Open your mind. You need to feel. To realize.” And she takes another sip.

Realize what? Jack wonders. Feeling—he gets that, as a sort of rootless tingling stirs inside him. And he tells Fabiola, “I lost my mother nearly five years ago. Just before she passed, she told me to run. Run and never look back. I couldn’t make sense of it at the time. Skip to a few years later, and my wife became terminal. She fought hard. She was a very strong woman. But in the end, pancreatic cancer was stronger. All I’ve ever known is hard work, loss, and how to earn a lot of money. Mucho dinero. But here’s the thing: A few months ago, I found myself coming home to an empty house. All that I had worked to amass no longer mattered. I was, and still am, alone. So here I sit before you, not knowing where my life has gone. Everything has passed me by.”

“Evaporado,” Fabiola tells him.

Taking another sip of the dark maroon liquid, he watches with idle curiosity as the baked-earth walls begin to expand and contract, as if he were inside a living, breathing organism. And he tells Fabiola, “Yes, it has evaporated.”