Strange, but those memories didn’t even seem to belong to her anymore. They felt more like somebody else’s musings about a man very different from the one her father had turned out to be.

The door opened, stirring Alicia from her thoughts. It was her mother, still wearing her black hat and veil.

“There are people here you should see,” she said.

“Can we talk for a minute?”

Her mother balked. All week long, she had been dodging a one-on-one conversation, which Alicia figured was the reason she’d given the okay to invite Vince along for the family-only events. “But we have guests.”

“They can wait a few minutes,” said Alicia.

The older woman paused to consider it. A houseful of guests offered her the perfect excuse to cut things short, but she seemed to recognize that she’d put off Alicia long enough. “What is it that you want to talk about?”

At Alicia’s lead, they sat in the matching leather armchairs in the center of the room, separated by an antique marble pedestal that had been in the family for generations and that now served as a cocktail table. As a young girl, Alicia got into serious trouble for wrapping herself in a bedsheet, covering her body with talcum powder, and then climbing up on the pedestal with arms pinned behind her back à la Venus de Milo. This room was so full of conflicting emotions.

She looked at her mother directly and said, “Do you think I should forgive Papi?”

“For what?”

“Surely you don’t need me to answer that.”

“Your father loved you more than most men love their own natural offspring.”

“His whole life was a lie, and he made me the center of it.”

“His love for you was not a lie.”

“That’s not the point,” said Alicia.

“What else matters?”

“Truth,” said Alicia. “The truth matters.”

“The truth is that your father was destroyed by some crazy terrorists who exploded a bomb near a crowded café and murdered his wife and daughter. It took him a long time to find a reason to go on living, and he found it in you and me.”

More of those conflicting emotions. Alicia backed off just a bit, her tone softening. “Why did you adopt?”

“We desperately wanted a child. We tried on our own, but I couldn’t get pregnant.”

“Did you know about my parents?”

“Of course not. I thought you came through normal adoption channels.”

“But Papi knew everything.”

She struggled, as if the answer were better left unstated. “Like I said, those people destroyed his life. He must have justified it that way.”

“Wait a second. Are you saying that my biological parents planted that bomb that killed his family?”

“No, no. I don’t know anything about them or what they did. But they were part of the insurgency.”

“Guilty by association, is that it?”

Her mother didn’t answer, but Alicia waited, refusing to let it drop. Finally, her mother said, “You have to understand the times. I’m sure your father’s only thought was that he was providing a loving home and a bright future for the innocent child of not-so-innocent parents.”

Alicia nodded, not because she agreed with what her mother was saying but because she understood her position. “For the moment, let’s put aside the question of whether that rationalization holds water or not. I still have a real problem with what you’re telling me.”

There was a sudden uptick in the noise level outside the closed doors. More guests were arriving, and apparently, no one was leaving. “We really should get back,” her mother said.

“I’m almost finished.”

“We can talk more about this later,” Graciela said, rising.

“No, I want to talk about it now.”

The stern voice made her mother do a double take, and it surprised even Alicia. Until this day, she’d told herself and others that there were certain things she just didn’t want to know. But now she was in a different place. Her real grandmother was no longer an abstraction. She’d also been affected deeply by Jack’s mention of the innocent woman who had sacrificed herself to expose the truth. Alicia couldn’t stop thinking about the midwife who’d heard a numbered prisoner shout out her real name, who’d followed her conscience and sought out the baby’s grandmother, only to pay the price with her own life. Alicia was tired of hiding behind lies.

Her mother lowered herself back into the armchair.

Alicia asked, “Do you remember the videotapes of those Argentine cartoons Papi and I used to watch together? The ones about the witch?”

“La Bruja de la Cachavacha. Of course I remember.”

“My biological parents were held in a detention center called La Cacha. It was named after that cartoon, because of the witch who could make people disappear.”

Her mother looked down. “That’s a very macabre coincidence.”

“Unless it’s not a coincidence.”

“Oh, come on now, Alicia. There is no way that your father could have known the name of the detention center.”

“Why not?”

“How could he-how could anyone sit down with a little girl and watch those cartoons knowing that her parents had disappeared from La Cacha? That just wouldn’t be human.”

“I agree.”

“Your father would have to have been some kind of sociopath.”

“Yes,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “He would.”

Her mother took her meaning and nearly erupted from her chair. “This conversation has gone on long enough. After all that’s been said this past week, and after all that you’ve been through, I can understand that you would have some questions. But I won’t have you dishonoring your father like this on the day he was laid to rest.”

“I also have some questions about the woman he married.”

“You’re going to insult me now, too?”

“The birth certificate. It said I was two years old when I was really just two weeks old.”

The older woman covered her ears. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

“That means Papi knew it was false.”

“I’m leaving now,” Graciela said as she started toward the door.

“And so did you.”

Alicia’s final accusation stopped Mrs. Mendoza cold in her tracks. She stood there for almost a full minute, saying not a word, her back to Alicia.

Alicia said, “I went all the way through school wondering why I was the oldest kid in my class, thinking I’d been held back. I was actually the youngest.”

Her mother refused to turn around.

Alicia said, “You don’t have an answer for any of this, do you?”

Graciela started to turn around, then stopped. It was as if she couldn’t face Alicia. Or perhaps she simply didn’t want Alicia to see her tears of shame.

“I didn’t think so,” said Alicia. She rose and walked right past her mother on her way to the double doors.

“Alicia!” her mother pleaded, but Alicia opened the door and kept right on walking.

The house was filled with guests, scores of people grouped into smaller clusters of conversations. They held drinks or plates of food with one hand, and, in the time-honored Latin tradition, spoke with the other hand. Several guests tried to catch Alicia’s eye and engage her as she cut through the crowd. Alicia made a beeline past everyone, exited through the French doors that led to the patio, and found a little privacy in the backyard near the tall ficus hedge.

She dialed Jack Swyteck on her cell phone.

“Hey, it’s me, Alicia Mendoza,” she said.

“Well, isn’t this a surprise.”

“I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“Sure. What is it?”

Alicia glanced back toward the house. Through the French doors, she could see her mother inside the family room, working the crowd with the skill of a seasoned politician. She had managed to compose herself completely, as if nothing had happened-just like the last twenty-seven years.

Perhaps she and the mayor had been alike in more ways than Alicia could imagine.

“Tell my grandmother-” she started to say, but a wave of confusion and conflicting emotions washed out her voice.