It only had to be sad, and reserved, and kind, and we handed him the benefit of every doubt, because that is what you do for a man who has watched his twin die.

He hid inside our compassion.

It was the safest place he could have chosen.

Chapter 3 — The Fire on the Highway

Santiago died in November of 2019.

I will not linger over the details of that day, because there is nothing in them worth lingering over, and because the version I believed then was, I now know, a carefully arranged lie, so that every fact I could offer you would be false.

What I was told, what I believed for three years, was this.