Santiago looked at his grandfather — the proud man who had learned, too late and then not too late after all, to be gentle.

“I’m proud of us,” he said.

“Not because we’re perfect.

Because we learned not to repeat the things that nearly destroyed us.” Magdalena put her arms around them both.

And a little way off, Cristóbal, who had stood with this family since the night it began, quietly raised a camera and took a photograph — three people smiling in front of a grave that had once meant only loss and guilt and silence, and now meant something else entirely.

Griselda had used money to chain a boy.