I told him that I wanted to tell Susan about us, that I wanted to move from having a hidden, secret life with him, to something that would be recognized. He did not want this. The time we spent together was enough for him, our life absorbed whatever needs he had for love and friendship. He did not want anyone else to recognize us, and once I discovered this, I did not ask him for more. Nevertheless, I felt that things between us would be more concrete and that I would worry less about losing him if somebody else could see us together. I would have loved to leave a dinner with Susan and Donald in his company, I imagined us standing at the door putting on our coats and leaving together. But this was not something that he cared about.

I do not know what he told his parents, but soon they got used to the idea that he disappeared after work most evenings and did not come back until late. I asked him if they thought that he had a girlfriend, but he shrugged and shook his head. There was nothing I did not want to know about him, and I had to be careful not to ask too much. I wanted him to leave some of his clothes in the apartment, but I had to be sly about engineering this, because he would not have understood. He was easygoing and took things for granted, but he made it clear, in various ways, that he loved me.

I asked him to come with me to my parents’ grave. It was a Sunday afternoon in winter and the sky was low and gray. We got a taxi to the Recoleta; there were people walking around looking at the small, ornate temples built over the graves of the rich of the city. I found as we wandered around that I was glad that my parents were lying here, and I spoke to them in my mind as we stood over their grave. I told them about Pablo and how much in love with him I was and how happy I felt. I wanted them to know that I was all right now, after years of not being all right, years when I missed them, and wished that I could wake in the night and march into their bedroom and snuggle in between them. I’ve done something with myself, I said to them, and he’s here now beside me. I feel loved again and secure, I said. Do you remember how I always wanted a brother, I asked them. Well, I have one now and I love him.

I did not intend to cry, but I found the tears coming and there was nothing I could do about it.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Pablo. “I’m sorry.”

“You can stay here as long as you like,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”