“Mom,” I said, and my voice broke on the word.

“I went to Courtney.

I’ve been to the sheriff.

I have reason, real reason, to believe that Santiago is alive.” And my mother-in-law rose slowly to her feet, her hands trembling against the front of her sweater, and looked from me to the man she had raised, and asked the question that would break all of our hearts open.

“Then,” she whispered, “who did we put in the ground?” The room went utterly silent.

It is one thing for a wife to suspect; it is another for a mother to ask that question out loud, in her own living room, of the child she raised.