I know now that none of it was chance, and I have made a kind of grim peace with how well it was done.

Blanca found me at the one place I could not be on guard — a room full of people who cared about sick children, where a warm question about my patients was the most natural thing in the world.

She did not push her son on me.

She spent weeks being my friend first, remembering the names of my patients, asking after my mother’s knee, until by the time Dario appeared he arrived pre-approved, vouched for by a woman I had already decided to trust.

And Dario was good.