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fair, and said that the family needed the money more than he did. Imagine that—a lawyer refusing to collect his full fee. That gesture earned Ariel even more publicity than the case itself. After that, Ariel’s phone never stopped ringing. I sometimes wondered what his motivation for that had been, as Ariel had never been particularly altruistic. He had been born and raised poor, and every dollar to him had always been precious. It was not like him to give a poor mother a break, but, whatever his reason, it had helped propel him into the limelight of the Miami legal community. Ariel could be cold and calculating to reach his goals, and he was a master at cost/benefit analysis, characteristics I lacked. But then, I had to acknowledge that I was brought up in a wealthy family, so I had not faced what he had.
    Marti stirred in his bed, sensing my presence. I carefully adjusted his blanket and crept out of the room. I lingered a little in the hallway, looking over the framed photographs that covered almost every inch of wall. I reached out and touched a couple of my favorites.
    The oldest picture was of my parents in Miami, taken early in 1960—the year they left Cuba. They left in a hurry, with no time to pack any photos, so my family’s visual history started here. That void must have affected us pretty strongly, because we had shot pictures with a vengence in the forty years since—thousands and thousands of them. Sometimes I thought we did it because we had no visual evidence that we had, indeed, enjoyed a full and successful life in Cuba. So, damn it, we would prove we had one here in America. My two brothers and I were all avid picture-takers, so we had a thorough pictorial chronicle of the Santos clan. My walls, desks, and dressers were all packed with framed photos. Someday I was going to run out of room to display them.
    I returned to the den to check out how serious Ariel was about his TV viewing. The moment he heard me come in, he switched off the set and stood up.
    “The baby’s okay?” he asked, walking toward me. “I checked on him right before you got back.”
    “Sleeping soundly,” I replied. “Sweet and innocent.”
    Ariel put his arms around me. “I missed you tonight,” he said in his deep voice. “Jacinta fixed me a tray. I had dinner in front of the TV.”
    He kissed me below my ear, one of my most sensitive areas. He knew all my shortcuts.
    “You look sexy dressed all in black like that,” he purred, then kissed me on the mouth. “Garlic. All in black, coming home from a funeral smelling like garlic. I feel like I have a Sicilian wife. Very sexy.”
    He started working on the other ear. Soon we were in the bedroom. For all our differences, this was one area where we were always in tune with each other. And that was what was important.

[ 4 ]
     
    “Margarita, mi amor, I know you’ve been avoiding the subject. But I’m here if you need to talk about it.”
    Ariel carefully folded the Miami Herald and put it on the table.
    “Time’s getting short,” he added. “You have to let them know.”
    We were on the terrace behind our house, breakfast behind us, watching the waters of Biscayne Bay. The effects of last night’s lovemaking were still with me, making me relaxed and languorous. But now Ariel was jolting me back to a reality that I didn’t want to confront.
    I fought off the impulse to groan. It was a beautiful morning, why should I deal with any pressure? It was eight in the morning, a perfect temperature, with no trace of humidity and just enough breeze to drive away thoughts of the stifling heat that would set in when the day progressed.
    Ariel was looking good that morning, his hair still damp from the shower, his skin glowing after a close shave. He wasn’t storybook handsome; his features were rough and sort of meshed together. He looked a little tough; in jeans and a T-shirt he could be taken for a street fighter. The toughness was no act—without it, he wouldn’t be