“The records show a legal marriage and financial connections,” she replied.

“We’re not assuming more than the evidence supports.

But their claims about being siblings were false.”

I remembered Leticia sitting beside me at dinner, describing Octavio as her protector after their parents’ deaths.

She had asked me to include him in family photographs.

He had lifted a glass in my honor and said he finally trusted somebody to look after his sister.

A carefully performed family, presented to a man who missed his own.