Outside, the sun beats down on the stone plaza surrounding the church. The heat of it bounces off the stones. It’s a beautiful day, which at this point just sort of feels like an insult. Beneath my skirts, I am sweating. I wasn’t going to wear a dress, but I didn’t want to upset Kiki’s father. The poor man has been through enough. Kiki didn’t even rouse herself from her grief-stricken state to accompany him to the church on this doomed, last-ditch effort to see his son be granted the dignity in death he wasn’t in the final moments of his life.

The bishopric had been kind enough to send someone to the villa to spit on Alejandro’s grave. Or rather, to tell us he couldn’t have one in their goddamn cemetery.

“He’s a suicide, you must understand.” The priest holds up his hands, palms open, begging for a grieving father to make sense of something violently senseless.

Don Carlos’s hand shakes on the head of his cane. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have to do this. I place a gentle hand on his arm. Through the fabric of his coat, his arm feels frailer than it should. With his free hand, he pats the back of mine absently, like a reflex. His skin is so sallow, he looks like he might be a ghost himself. He shakes his head, his jowls trembling as he prepares to speak.

“He was not—my son would not—”

“To take one’s own life is to spit in the face of God.”

I do it without thinking.

I spit.

The three of us stand frozen, watching my spittle arc through the air like a well-shot musket ball. It lands on the priest’s cheek with a satisfying plop.

And there endeth the discussion.

Don Carlos doesn’t even tell me off for it. That might be the worst part. Once we are unceremoniously hustled out of the church and back into the carriage, he hands me his kerchief to wipe a stray bit of my own spittle off my chin. For the ride home, he is quiet, staring forlornly out the carriage window. I do not acknowledge the tears falling down the sides of his face. He does not acknowledge mine either. We sit there, two souls broken and trying to pretend not to be.