Alejandro turned, very slowly, to look at the toddler asleep in Claudia’s arms — the boy he had bragged about for a year, the son he had traded his marriage to claim, the heir he had thrown my parents’ albums in a dumpster to make room for — and then he turned back to Claudia.

“Tell me he’s lying,” he said.

“Tell me.”

Claudia looked away and said nothing, which said everything.

“A year,” Alejandro said, and his voice cracked down the middle.

“I spent a year telling everyone he was my son.”