I swing by my dad’s to say goodbye. I have the wisdom not to mention anything about my plans, about the plan to destroy myself in the desert alongside Julián, because I have a visceral relationship with him, irremediable, impossible to live with. I don’t tell him anything, I mean, I do tell him that Julián is taking me, that I do say, and even that’s enough for him to glance over at me with an expression I know well, I’ve seen that face before, the what are we going to do with you, Emilia face, what are we going to do, and yet he knows, he knows I can’t help it, he knows it’s stronger than I am and he realizes—right now—that that has not changed. He asks, not without malice, and this is all he will say on the subject, if the whole family is going, or just the two of us. Another fake smile on my part, and a clap on the arm, for the audacity, for the perspicacity, for the degree to which his comment is appropriate.