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But he had been grieving her too.

And every time he risked slipping through that passage to bring me a treat, make me laugh, or sit beside me when I was lonely, he hadn’t been acting as my mother’s loyal protector.

He had been finding the only safe way he could to be my father.

“Oh, God.” I leaned closer.

“You were always there.”

“As much as I could be.”

His breathing shuddered.

“I could not give you my name. Could not call you mine where anyone could hear.” His eyes closed for a moment. “But I knew every birthday. Every fever. Every book you hid beneath your blankets.”

A laugh broke through my crying.

“You knew about those?”

“I gave you half of them.”

I studied his face, suddenly terrified of forgetting any part of it.

He managed the smallest smile.

“You have your mother’s mind.”

I shook my head, crying harder.

“Her courage too.”

His fingers tightened weakly around my hand.

“You and your mother were the loves of my life.”

I couldn’t breathe.

He looked at me as though there was nothing else in the courtyard.

“Being your father was the greatest honor of my life.”

I stared at him through my tears, not knowing how to fit twenty-five years of love into an answer.

“You were the only man who never demanded anything from me. The man who’d spent twenty-five years loving me without being allowed to say the words that would have gotten us both killed. You gave me the greatest gift anyone ever could.”

His brow pulled together faintly.

I cupped his cheek with one bloody hand.

“I’m not his daughter.” My voice shook.

“I’m yours.”

Rafael closed his eyes, and a tear slipped from beneath one lid.

“Sí.”

“Papá.”