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Part 2: Diego
I sat down in my desk chair. I held the DNA report in my hands.
Renata climbed into my lap. She didn’t understand. She just wanted to be close.
My mother stood in the doorway. My father behind her.
I said, Tell me everything.
My mother sat down on the edge of the couch. She told me.
Seven years ago, my brother Diego was twenty-four. He was dating a young woman named Lucia. Our parents didn’t approve. She came from a poor family. She had a past.
Diego died in a car accident in March.
In June, Lucia knocked on my parents’ door. Five months pregnant. She said the baby was Diego’s.
My father said she was lying. He said she was trying to get money from a grieving family.
My mother said, We closed the door in her face.
She said, She came back twice. With an ultrasound picture. We wouldn’t look at it.
Lucia had the baby in November. A girl. She was struggling. Drinking. No family. No help.
When the baby was eighteen months old, the state removed her. Six months later, she was available for adoption.
My mother said, You adopted her, Mauricio. You didn’t know. We didn’t know.
She said, I opened that letter this morning. When it arrived. I recognized Lucia’s name.
She said, I read it. And I made Renata wash the dishes anyway.
She started sobbing.
She said, Every time I looked at her today, I saw Diego’s eyes. And I couldn’t stand it. Because I turned her away. Before she was even born.
I looked down at my daughter. Her dark eyes. Her little dimple.
Diego had that dimple. On the same side.
I’d never noticed.
My father hadn’t said a word.
Then he spoke. His voice was cold.
He said, A DNA test from a woman like that proves nothing. It could be fake.
He said, Throw it away. Nothing changes.
I kept my voice calm.
Dad, I said, it came from an attorney’s office. It’s a certified lab.
He said, I don’t care.
Then he said something that made my mother gasp.
He said, Even if she’s Diego’s, that girl is the reason my son was driving that night.
He was going to see her mother. When he crashed.
Part 3: Six Years
I took Renata home that night. My parents stayed behind.
I tucked her into bed. Then I sat at my kitchen table. I let myself count.
Four years since I adopted Renata.
She was two. She didn’t talk. She hid under tables. She screamed when anyone touched her.
I counted the nights I sat on her bedroom floor. Until she fell asleep. Hundreds.
I counted the first time she said Daddy. Seven months after she came home. At the grocery store. I cried in the cereal aisle.
I counted the Christmases with my parents. Four.
Every year, my sister’s girls got big presents. Renata got something small. A coloring book. A pair of socks.
My mother said she didn’t know what Renata liked.
Every year, Renata sat apart from the cousins. My father never held her. Not once.
He said he wasn’t good with small children. He held Sofia and Emma all the time.
Then I counted Diego.
My little brother. Funny. Wild. He played guitar badly.
He called me two weeks before the accident. He said, I met someone, Mauri. I think she’s the one.
I said, Bring her for Easter.
He died in March.
Then I counted Lucia.
Twenty-two. Pregnant. Grieving. Turned away by Diego’s parents three times.
She had the baby alone. She lost her to the state.
She got sober. Four years ago. She finished a program. She’s a nurse’s aide now.
She hired an attorney. Not to take Renata back.
Just so Renata’s father would know who she really was.
The next morning, someone knocked on my door.
It was my father.
Part 4: My Father
My father stood on my porch. Seventy years old. Gray. Stiff.
He didn’t come in. He held the DNA report in his hand. My mother had given it to him.
He said, I need to say something. And I need you to listen.
He said, Diego was going to see that woman the night he died. He told me. He said she was pregnant. He said he was going to marry her.
He said, I told him he was throwing his life away. We argued. He stormed out. He drove too fast.
He said, Two hours later, the police called.
His voice shook.
He said, I’ve blamed her for seven years. Because if I didn’t blame her, I’d have to blame myself.
Then his voice hardened again.
He said, I won’t be a grandfather to that girl. I can’t. Every time I see her, I’ll see that night.
He said, Your mother wants to make it right. She can do what she wants.
He said, But don’t ask me to pretend. Don’t bring her to my house anymore.
Then he said the thing he came to say.
Keep her away from me. For both our sakes.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because he was my father. And he was in pain.
I took a slow breath.
Dad, I said quietly, I’m sorry about Diego. I miss him every day too.
He nodded.
But Renata isn’t the reason he died, I said. She wasn’t even born.
You turned her mother away. Three times. Then you made her wash dishes on Christmas.
My father’s face crumpled.
I’m not going to keep her away from you, I said gently. She’s not the one who needs to stay away.
You can see her whenever you’re ready to treat her like your granddaughter.
Until then, she won’t be at your house.
My father stood on the porch for a long time.
Then a small voice spoke from behind me.
Renata. In her pajamas. Holding her drawing. The family portrait.
She looked at my father. She held out the drawing.
She said, quietly, Grandpa. I drew you.
I’m the one on the side. Because I didn’t know if I was allowed in the middle.
Part 5: The Middle
My father looked at the drawing for a long time.
Everyone in a row. Grandma. Grandpa. Sofia. Emma. Me.
And a little girl standing off to the side. Alone. With a dimple.
He knelt down on my porch. Slowly. His knees cracked.
He looked at Renata’s face. Her eyes. Her dimple.
He said, very quietly, You have your father’s smile.
Renata said, You mean Daddy?
My father looked at me. Then back at her.
He said, Yes. And another daddy. Who loved you before you were born.
He started to cry. Right there on my porch.
Renata didn’t understand. But she put her arms around his neck. She hugged him.
He held her. For the first time in four years.
My father started grief counseling in January. Seven years too late. He says he’s learning to stop blaming people for what he can’t change.
My mother called Lucia in February. She apologized. On the phone. For an hour.
Lucia came to visit in the spring. She sat in my living room. She met Renata.
She didn’t ask for anything. She just wanted to see her.
Renata knows the truth now. In a way a six-year-old can understand. She has a daddy who raised her. A first mommy who loved her. And an angel daddy named Diego.
She has a picture of him by her bed. Holding his guitar.
Last Christmas, we went to my parents’ house.
My father met us at the door. He picked Renata up. He carried her inside.
There was a big present under the tree. Wrapped in gold paper. Her name on the tag. In my father’s handwriting.
She opened it. It was a small guitar. Child-sized.
My father said, It was your daddy Diego’s idea. He always wanted to teach his kids to play.
After dinner, my mother washed the dishes.
My father dried them.
Renata sat on the couch between Sofia and Emma. Strumming her guitar. Badly. Just like Diego.
Later that night, she drew a new family portrait.
Everyone in a row. Grandma. Grandpa. Sofia. Emma. Daddy.
And Renata.
Right in the middle.
