“Sí, Delia, but I’m reaching out for you,” he said, extending his hand, “to make it easier and safer.”
I stared at his hand a moment and then reached for it. I truly felt like someone drowning who had been rescued. He pulled me gently toward him.
This is Adan’s gift, I thought. It was he who was reaching for me, reaching from beyond the grave.
His father tightened his grip on my hand to lead me out.
What was I really giving him in return for this rescue?
A grandchild.
And what did a grandchild really mean to a man who had lost his son?
For the answer, I was thrown back in time to the day mi abuela Anabela and I buried my parents. When we walked away, she was holding my hand as tightly as Señor Bovio was holding it now.
And she was smiling through her grief and her tears.
“Why are you smiling, Abuela?” I asked. How can she smile? I wondered.
“Because I have you,” she said, “and because of you, they will never die.”
Señor Bovio wore mi abuela Anabela’s smile all the way home.