You look from the boy to the man standing a few feet away under the gray Bogotá sky, and for a second the whole street seems to hold its breath. Traffic hisses through puddles. A bus splashes water against the curb. Your baby, Santiago, stirs against your chest and gives a sleepy little sigh into the crook of your neck.
The man in front of you does not look like the sort of person who ever has to ask anyone for anything.
He is taller than you expected from the magazine covers, broader too, with rain darkening the shoulders of an expensive coat he probably didn’t even notice getting wet until he saw his son under the store awning with a stranger’s jacket around him. He has the controlled face of a man who has spent years making people believe nothing can unsettle him. But now his eyes are fixed on Mateo with something raw and frightened moving through them.
Then he looks at you.
And whatever he sees on your face seems to hit him even harder.
“Thank you,” he says, quietly enough that you almost miss it under the rain.
