A child.

Their son’s child.

And Aurelio, drowning in a grief he was too proud to show and a guilt he was too stubborn to name, had told himself the rumor was a lie, or a scheme, or a trap laid by a grasping woman to extract money from a wealthy family — and he had not made the single phone call that would have told him the truth.

He had let his pride decide, as he had let his pride decide everything, and his pride had cost him fifteen years of a grandson who had spent those same fifteen years believing he was alone in the world.