Chapter 18: The Name Card

I designed my mother's family tree that night at the shop's big screen, with Gael watching over my shoulder.

I did the dotted box first, because that was the job.

I drew Graciela and Humberto joined by a line, Paulina beneath them, and me off to one side in a box of little dashes.

I set the type in the crest's gold and checked the spacing twice.

"It's very good work," Gael said.

"It's the worst thing I've ever made."

"The kerning is excellent."

"It's a family tree where I'm a guest."

"Then why are you perfecting it?"

"Because she's going to hold it up in front of two hundred people," I said. "I want every dash to be sharp."

He studied me for a moment in the glow of the screen.

"You have a plan."

"I have a grandmother."

Paulina came on Thursday on the early bus and sat on the stool in the back room with her hands between her knees.

I showed her the dotted page first.

She went quiet and stared at it for a long time.

"Now this one," I said, and I opened the second file.

It was the same tree with the same gold type.

Graciela and Humberto were joined by a solid line to a baby born at ten past three.

I had written her name under it with no box around it at all.

"And you," I said. "I haven't drawn you yet."

She looked at the empty space beside my name.

"I don't want to be a secret in a drawing," she said.

"I won't put you in anything you don't want."

"No. Draw me as I am." She swallowed. "A solid line to my mother. She was Mom's younger sister, and she died a week after I was born."

"Do you want a name under it?"

"I don't know her name to put there. I'll find it." She took a breath. "Under my line, write that I was chosen."

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