Chapter 11: His Father's Birthday

Valeria called her husband on Saturday at noon, because the rules said she could.

"I need you on Sunday, at the side gate of your mother's house," she said. "Six forty-five."

"Is something wrong? Are the babies..."

"The babies are fine. Wear something dark."

He was there at six, forty-five minutes early.

She found him leaning on the stone wall in a black sweater.

He looked like he hadn't slept.

He looked at the green lanyard in her hand and did not ask where she'd gotten it.

"Brenda?" he said.

"Brenda."

He nodded.

It was the first time she had seen him not argue on his mother's behalf.

The side gate chirped under the white card and swung open.

They crossed the garden in the dark.

They passed the lemon trees where she had been shamed in front of forty people.

The family wing was quiet.

Every door in the hall had been polished, and the smell of lemon oil came out of the walls.

"The study is at the end," Rodrigo said, very low.

"She goes to Mass at seven. Staff don't come up before eight."

"How do you know the safe is in there?"

"Because I watched my father open it every year on his birthday to take out the deeds."

"Do you know the code?"

"I think so."

His hand was not steady on the door.

The study had a long desk, a green lamp and an oil painting of his father over the fireplace.

Behind the painting, set into the wall, was a gray steel door with a keypad.

Rodrigo lifted the frame off its hook and set it on the floor.

For a moment he only stood there.

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