“He’s just down the hall, getting stronger, same as you.

He asks about you every hour.” Santiago closed his eyes again, but he was smiling now, and the tear that came this time was a different kind.

“I thought I was alone,” he murmured, half asleep already.

“For so long I thought I was completely alone.” “You never were,” his grandmother said, smoothing his hair.

“You just couldn’t see them yet.

That’s all.