For the first time in many years, he did not find an immediate answer.
He looked at the coins.
Then to her.
And he bent down to be at her level.
—You don’t owe me anything.
Lucia firmly denied it.
—It’s not debt.
He waited.
The girl placed the small bag in her hand and said:
—It’s so I can buy milk for another child when I’m not around.
Alejandro lowered his head.
He closed his fingers around the coins.
And he understood that, on a rainy night, an eight-year-old girl had done something that no one in his world had achieved in decades.
He had given her back her heart.
