Page 21 of The Lion in the Library

“You’ve seen it,” I said.

“Miguel came by this morning with the papers. The dancing photograph is very...” She paused. “It’s a beautiful photograph, actually. That’s the irritating part. It would be easier to be angry if we looked ridiculous.”

Despite everything, I laughed. “We definitely don’t look ridiculous.”

“No,” she agreed, softly. “We don’t.” Another pause. “Roberto called this morning.”

Roberto. Luz’s father. The name landed with a particular weight.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing specific yet. He said he had seen some things in the papers and wanted to ‘reconnect.’” She made the word sound like something she’d found under a rock. “He is filming here in Los Angeles. He wants to see Luz.”

“Has he been in contact before? With Luz, I mean.”

“He calls occasionally. Luz knows he exists, loves him the way children love absent parents — completely and without the sense to wonder why they don’t show up.” Her voice was careful, even. The voice of a woman who had practiced not letting this hurt her. “She deserves better than that.”

“She has better than that,” I said, before I could think twice about it.

Estrella was quiet for a moment. “Leo.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.” Her voice was different now — quieter, and something in it made my chest tighten. “That’s what frightens me a little. How much I’ve started to believe you.”

I stood in the warm Los Angeles afternoon, the payphone receiver warm against my ear, and I thought about what to say. In my career, I had been trained to think three moves ahead. To anticipate. To position.

“Estrella,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t know what’s coming,” she said, gently. “Neither do I.”

“No. But I know where I want to be when it gets here.” I heard her breathing. “Can I come for dinner? I’d like to be in the same room as you when we figure out what ‘here’ looks like.”

A pause. Then: “Come for dinner. I’ll make enchiladas. The children have been asking for them anyway.”

“I’ll bring the wine.”

“And maybe some patience,” she said. “Roberto tends to make me less charming.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I said. “But I’ll bring patience too.”

The enchiladas were extraordinary. This was not a surprise — I had learned that Estrella approached cooking the way she approached everything else she cared about, with complete commitment and a refusal to do it halfway.

What was a surprise was Luz.

She arrived at the dinner table having apparently spent the afternoon in intensive study of napkin folding, and she was determined to share her findings. She had a napkin in hand before I had even sat down.

“This one is the bishop’s hat,” she said, presenting it to me with the gravity of a professor delivering a keynote. “You have to do the corners first or it doesn’t work. Leo, you try.”

I tried. The napkin did not become a bishop’s hat. It became something that might generously be described as a defeated envelope.

“You went too fast on the second fold,” Luz said, with the patience of someone who had expected this outcome. She unfolded it and handed it back. “Again.”

Across the table, Estrella pressed her lips together very firmly and became extremely interested in serving the enchiladas.

My second attempt produced something slightly more architectural. Luz examined it with professional detachment. “Better,” she allowed. “We’ll work on it.”

Pedro, who had arranged his entire fleet of toy cars along the edge of the table in a starting grid of his own design, looked up from this project long enough to assess my napkin. “It looks like a frog,” he said helpfully, and returned to his cars.