I did not yet know the truth, which was so much stranger and uglier than a simple affair.

But my six-year-old already understood the shape of the thing, in the way children understand things, without the words for them.

Because my mother-in-law, Beatrice, had become utterly obsessed with that little boy.

Arthur had shown her a paternity test that, he said, confirmed Mateo was his biological son.

And after four granddaughters, Beatrice finally, in her mind, had what she had been waiting for.

Her male heir.