Miguel lowers his sunglasses, slides deeper into the seat, and waits.
When the final bell rings and the flood of students spills onto the sidewalk, his pulse does something primitive and graceless when he spots Emilio stepping out alone.
Your child always looks smaller when you are afraid for him.
Emilio adjusts the straps of his backpack and pauses at the gates, glancing right, then left, not like a boy admiring the afternoon but like someone making sure he is not being watched.
Then he turns and walks in the opposite direction from home.
Miguel waits a few seconds before getting out of the car and following on foot, keeping just enough distance to avoid detection, though every step makes him feel ridiculous, guilty, and strangely desperate.
Emilio moves with purpose. He cuts through side streets, crosses an intersection where buses groan and taxis spit heat into the air, and heads toward a small neighborhood plaza Miguel has driven past a hundred times without ever seeing.
It is one of those tired city pockets pressed between apartment buildings and corner stores, with chipped benches, a rusted fountain, and a few stubborn trees still trying to cast shade over cracked pavement.
That is where everything changes.
Behind the trunk of a jacaranda tree, Miguel sees his son approach a bench where a girl is sitting alone.
