She had been given two — the one who lost her in a fire, and searched for ten years, and never stopped hoping; and the one who found what was lost, and asked nothing, and simply loved her.

She would spend the rest of her life belonging to both.

She thought a great deal, in the months after, about the strange arithmetic of it.

The world liked stories of long-lost heirs restored to their true families, as though the true family were the one with the blood and the money, and the years in between were only a detour to be corrected.

But Aracely could not make herself feel that way, and she stopped trying.

Consuelo Aguilar had not been a detour.