Back to Home Page  Synopsis

EPILOGUE

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THREE YEARS LATER

At half past three in the afternoon, September 10th, 2013, Andrew left behind the ground hall of Hospital del Mar and took a deep breath of fresh air. As he walked down the seafront along Passeig Marítim, he found himself thinking why after three years in the city he still couldn't stop being excited by the salty tang of the Mediterranean. Just like everything about Barcelona, it somehow remained a timeless, endless reminder of Andrew's belonging here. The city of his dreams looked just as magic and wonderful as it had been back in April, 2004. More than nine years had passed, Andrew thought, but that pivotal point of his life still felt as close as if it had been yesterday.

A light breeze had picked up, hinting at the crispness of coming fall, even though temperatures remained hot during the day. Looking over at the broad sandy beach that stretched beneath the elevated seafront avenue, Andrew noticed that people out there were few. He knew he was going to come back to the beach a couple of hours later and enjoy the sea. Normally, after any exhausting day of five surgeries like this one, he would spend the evening at home. But this day was special. He knew he wasn't going to come to the beach on his own. He had anticipated this day, and the very thought of the upcoming event swept away his fatigue.

Andrew was now a second-year facial surgery resident at Hospital del Mar. Just as he had dreamt, he was working at one of Barcelona's largest hospitals, located square in front of the sea, as its name eloquently suggested. More than two years ago, after having passed exams to Spanish medical residency with the score 95 out of 100, he got plenty of employment offers, including several public hospitals within the city and a dozen in closest suburbia. He had a vast choice of surgical subspecialties, too, and instead of general surgery that he'd practiced in Russia, he decided on facial surgery, one of the most sophisticated and innovative branches. He wasn't hell-bent on making piles of money from cosmetic facial surgeries, but he felt like this specialty was a perfect opportunity to master and actualize his manual skills. He knew full well this was going to take years of practice and learning, and a lot of responsibility after getting the license and starting to work without supervision. After two years in the field, though, he'd never regretted about his choice. Oftentimes, he found himself thinking that over these two years as a resident he'd had more surgical practice than over ten years of working in Russia. He had known that organizational and education culture in Spanish healthcare would be different from what he'd experienced in his native country, but until he actually entered clinical practice, he couldn't imagine how striking the difference was. Ubiquitous corruption, undisguised nepotism, under-the-table cash-flows, systemic embezzlement and institutionalized malpractice — those things now felt as unthinkable to Andrew as they should be, even though he remembered how he faced them on a daily basis in his clinical practice in Russia. Handling heaps of nonsensical paperwork and never-ending obstruction of surgical practice now gave place to meaningful learning of clinical and technical skills. Andrew couldn't stop thinking how normal it was that senior doctors readily passed their knowledge and skills down to younger colleagues, including himself, and how different it was from what he had been conditioned to see as immutable and inevitable a decade ago back there in Russia — professors and practicing surgeons systemically obstructing the training of young physicians, greedy to keep the flow of under-the-table cash to themselves. No matter people's degrees and positions, in Spain Andrew couldn't feel the division of medical staff into 'masters and slaves' — organizational culture in the industry, just like the larger social culture of this country, held no room for these dysfunctional relationships. As a consequence of this culture, the entire treatment process in this hospital, and other hospital where Andrew had the chance to practice, was functioning in a precise and effective manner, with no worker wasting time in their workplace and no patient paying a health or monetary cost for poor organization. At least, Andrew saw it this way, comparing his observation to his vast past experience. No doubt, his work as a residence now was mentally and physically trying — at time totally exhausting — but he was all in and loved it because he finally got the chance to actualize his lifelong passion and serve what he'd always known to be his calling. Just like any learner, he did make some mistakes mastering the sleight of hands under supervision, but he and his fellow resident had a support network of senior doctors to back them up. There was no shaming, but accountability and growth for them all, and, most importantly, no patient got hurt. Andrew was happy to see how he got better at his art with time. It was a fully deserved reward for all the effort he'd put forward over the years to make it there.

Despite the stories he once made up, he never encountered estrangement among his fellows, nor condescending treatment from his superiors. He feared he would be made to feel like he didn't belong he was obviously different. He was ten years older than the majority of his fellows; he was an immigrant, whose surname gave away his origin despite Spanish spoken with almost no accent. However, he never found himself feeling alienated, targeted, or humiliated. Instead, he got along with his new colleagues right off the bat. Andrew trusted that Spanish society in general and his fellows in particular would be anything but censorious and discriminatory, and his experience validated that belief. Whether it was because Barcelona was one of the most multiethnic and multicultural cities in Europe or because, like Irina had once told him, Spanish and Catalan people had different mindsets there compared to Russians, but Andrew never stopped feeling like he belonged there, and that over three years of living in Spain he'd felt more true belonging on this land that during thirty-five years of his life in Russia.

He walked about half a mile along the beach from the hospital to where Passeig Marítim bent off to the right, away from the seafront into the ancient quarter of La Barceloneta. He'd made a habit of parking his motorcycle there, instead of parking lots closer to the hospital. It was anything but practical, and yet it was hopelessly romantic — Andrew had a personal motive to do so. Every morning, before starting his day and every evening, after finishing it, he needed to walk by the place where he and Pablo had met nine years ago. He relived the memory of that day, and the strength of his feelings somehow didn't fade. It gave him force and inspiration to move ahead in his life. Surprisingly or not, his visions of Pablo never took on blurry, hazy quality with the passage of time; instead they remained bright and vivid. Like anything real in this world, his love didn't seem to disappear with time, and Andrew had learned to stay happy with enduring memories of it.

Since the day he'd moved to Barcelona, he never had any symptom of clinical depression. For all his fears, four months after Pablo's death he got off the antidepressant drug without developing the withdrawal syndrome or relapse. He sent a thankful prayer to God every day that he opened his eyes and realized he was still sane. Maybe, he had been cured from the bipolar disease. Maybe, he had never had the bipolar disease in the first place, and his major depression had resulted from long-lived, multisided, unacknowledged psychological trauma. Maybe, and most probably, current circumstances of his life made clinical depression absurd and impossible.

Just like on the first day of his improvement, he still believed that he just had no time for sorrow. He had the will to live. He had a family here in Spain. He was single, and he was certain he would stay single for life, but he had three people in his life who needed his care and love, even though none of them was biologically related to him.

Now, he smiled at the thought that he was going to see his loved ones shortly. He was coming to Pablo's parents to celebrate the third birthday of Isabel, his daughter. Their daughter, to be honest, as he'd always called the girl in his mind. Before going there, he had to drop by his apartment at Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes and grab the present for his little princess. One month after Pablo's death, he'd moved away from his parents'. It was still his home, he remembered, and both Don Alberto and Doña Juana encouraged him to stay with them, but his decision was clear. He told them that he needed to live closer to the University of Barcelona where the prep course for residency exams was taught, but in truth he had a different reason. It wasn't about distance. Given the freedom of transportation by the bike, Andrew could get anywhere in the beautiful city within half an hour. He believed it would be better to move away from the place he considered his home just in order to keep Pablo's parents safe from gossip. He didn't want their neighbors or friends to see him in the house. He didn't want Pablo's parents to have to come up with an explanation of who he was and why he was living with them. He didn't want to see celebrity media make money from shitty headlines telling the distorted story of how Pablo's daughter was born — the truth of this story wasn't going to be fun, fast, and easy. He wouldn't let anyone intrude into the lives of his loved ones, the lives he treasured, nor could he let Pablo's memory be dragged through mud. No one on the face of the earth, Pablo's parents included, was aware of his and Pablo's truth, and no one was ever supposed to become aware of it.

He rented a studio apartment at Gran Via, right halfway between Plaça d'Espanya and Plaça de la Universitat. His place was small yet cosy, well-kept, modernly furnished and within a ten minutes' walk Andrew could reach the University of Barcelona, where he spent the majority of his days during the prep course year. A journey to the historical center of Barcelona would take him a couple of minutes more. Some days, in late evenings, he used to stroll through the buzzing downtown and reflect. More exactly, he didn't reflect — he recollected. Over those few blissful months in the beginning of 2010, he and Pablo combed practically every street and lane in the Old City, and now he couldn't discover anything new to his eye. But he recalled exactly on which day they were walking there and what they were talking about. He mused on how his brain still stored all those details in HD, and he found the only explanation — those months were the happiest time of his life, and every day was seared into his memory, which, like all his senses and abilities, was functioning at its best.

Of course, his free time wasn't solely consumed by reliving the past. He lived away from Don Alberto, Doña Juana, and Isabel, but he remained part of the family. Every next weekday, he came to have a dinner with them, and it goes without saying that he spent nearly all weekends at their place or going out with Isabel. He believed he aroused less suspicion as a regular visitor of the Velázquez family than he would have if he'd continued to live with them. Doña Juana told him many times that, after the official announcement of Pablo's death, the eulogy written by his fans was published by FC Barcelona via Twitter and remained the most retweeted post in Spanish Twitter — shortly after, she was heaped with a myriad of interview offers from the media. Pablo's life after his sickness retirement was a sheer mystery to the public, because he decided to not make a show out of his death, and Andrew insisted that his parents follow the same principle. Despite the invitations coming in for months, they refused to publicly speak about the last months of their son's decline and his death. Not only because it was traumatic for them. Above all, they treasured the safety and privacy of Isabel, a new life and a heaven-sent gift they unexpectedly received after the loss of Pablo. Neither they nor Andrew could let the ever-prying paparazzi dig into how the girl was born and why she was legally fathered by a foreign resident.

Pablo's will might also have been a surprising news for the public, and Pablo wisely chose to keep it confidential. He willed a half of his monetary estate to UNICEF and a number of national charity organizations. He directed that the other half of his assets be equally divided between his mother, his father, and Andrew, this mysterious foreigner Pablo's public knew nothing about. When Andrew learned the sole bank amount he was supposed to receive, he thought that one zero at the end was added by mistake. But it was right. The money he and each of Pablo's parents was, in fact, capital. Yes, it was enough to live till the end of their lives and not experience any need. He had known Pablo accumulated lots of wealth and, except for the time of his marriage, was smart about money, but he couldn't imagine Pablo had been that rich. But it's not his loved one's wealth that caused Andrew's awe — it was Pablo's generosity. Bequeath a half of his money to disadvantaged children in his country and Latin America was a big deal — especially with that big of money. Real estate and non-monetary assets had been distributed as follows. Don Alberto got the Barcelona house and a large apartment in Alicante which Pablo had bought three years before death and leased since. Doña Juana got the ownership of a newly bought villa in Marbella — Andrew and the parents had no slightest idea about this purchase, which had been made after Pablo learned his diagnosis. Pablo indicated in the will that he gave it "to his family as a summertime and holiday residence, at the ownership of his beloved mother." Andrew took over Pablo's Mercedes-Benz, the motorbike and another huge apartment in Madrid. Smartly, Pablo left all three family members not only with a considerable amount of money, but also with real estate as a capital that could be leased and thus provide passive income.

Andrew considered moving away from the parents and renting an apartment before he became aware of his share of legacy. His funds were almost completely drained after the surrogacy enterprise, and he knew he'd have to work in order to pay rent. He found a waiter's job in a restaurant close to the Gran Via, and the abundance of restaurants in the district was another important reason for choosing the place. Studying during the day and waiting tables in night shifts was how he planned to spend one year before passing the residency exams. After Pablo's will had been revealed, Andrew got the privilege of receiving considerable rental fee from the high-end Madrid apartment. The rent was three times bigger than his lodging cost plus the budget for daily needs. Luckily, Andrew now didn't have to work, and after the day classes he had enough time to do study the medical text books without pulling all-nighters — which he knew could disrupt his sleep rhythm and trigger a depression relapse. Instead of night shifts at the restaurant, he could come to Pablo's parents in the evening and spend time with Isabel, watching her grow during the first year — this, he believed, was the most beautiful time of a child's life.

---

Two days before Isabel's birthday, Doña Juana shared wonderful gift idea with Andrew.

"During the last two months, Isabel's yearning to go to the sea," Pablo's mother said. "Many times during our strolls along the beach she saw the sea and pleaded me to go here."

"Really?" Andrew said. "She's never told me."

Suddenly Andrew realized he had went out with Isabel so many times, to a circus, a park, or a zoo, or just to take her to another place in the city he believed was spectacular, but by some mysterious reason he'd never happened to get to the beach with her.

"The rub is," she continued, "with my arthritis, I can't go out in the direct sun. You of all people know how it can make things worse. Tico can't swim, and he worries that he won't be able to take her out of water if she goes further than she should. You can swim, Andrew, can't you?"

"Sure. So you want me to take her to the beach?" Andrew suggested.

"That would be awesome, dear," Doña Juana said. "You know, when Pablo turned three years old, we also brought him to the beach for the first time, and it must have felt so joyful and delightful to him that he remembered it forever. From time to time, when we spoke about having kids, he always mentioned that he'd give the same present on the third birthday of his little one — take him or her to the sea."

Andrew realized that Pablo had never told him about that. He knew how much value Pablo placed on having kids as a life goal, but after Pablo's got clear on pursuing their relationship, he seemed to carefully avoid this topic in their conversations. Even in the nine months as Pablo withered away having Andrew by his side nearly all the time, after all the vulnerability and intimacy, he never uttered one word about kids. Maybe, he mistakenly believed that their relationship ruled out the possibility of having biological children. Probably, he'd never seriously considered surrogacy, or rejected it because of his Catholic beliefs. Andrew didn't know. But now, as many times before, he felt guilt for not talking to Pablo about that — and keeping the pregnancy in secret until what became Pablo's last day.

"Of course, I will take her to the sea," Andrew replied with a sad smile. "People out there on the beach are now much fewer than in summer, and I guess the water will be warm enough for her to feel comfortable."

---

As Andrew rode up Via Laietana, he felt the heat coming from the sun despite the wind he was facing. The summer had been incredibly hot, and the salty water of the Mediterranean had been warmed up so much that it probably wouldn't cool beyond the point of comfort until October, Andrew thought. Today he would show Isabel the sea for the first time in her life. During the upcoming weekend he hoped to take her to the sea again in case she liked it — most probably, he thought, she would love it, just like he and Pablo did. Then, they would spend not just a couple of hours but an entire half of the day with her on the beach.

So this year, Andrew didn't even have to make up what gifts he should buy for the girl. An orange swimsuit, a white swim ring and a tool kit for playing in the sand were supposed to gave Isabel the hint of the upcoming surprise.

Dropping by the apartment to take the gift bags, Andrew lingered in front of the mirror for a couple seconds. He ran a hand through his hair, matted because of the helmet, and now he really liked the way he looked. He wished he could wear a suit or another festive outfit, but damn it, he was going to his child's birthday on what in a way became a symbol of his and Pablo's love — the motorcycle. In the leathers, he still looked good enough, he thought. Andrew had never been prone to body narcissism, but now he couldn't help the impression that after having started a life from scratch in Barcelona, during these three years he had grown way more handsome despite aging. Although streaks of grey appeared in his hair, the hair magically ceased to fall off. Compared to when he had come from Moscow, his hair now looked considerably thicker. Whether it was because of better ecological conditions or better food or the fact that stress and trauma hitting his life for years finally gave way to happiness and peace, he didn't know. Some wrinkles etched deeper in the lines of his face, but he thought they imparted him a certain charm. He also wore a short stubble, like most men his age in Spain, and he readily adopted local men's fashion, so now he could easily pass for a Spaniard by appearance. Initially working out in the gym every other day, he also gained quite a bit of muscle lost during the years of depression. Fully accepting his masculinity along with his sexuality, he had no body shame and didn't hustle for hypermasculine image, so the next year he only did the gym twice a week. Now, he was totally with his appearance. Oftentimes, he remembered the idea Irina had shared with him in February, 2008, when they bumped into each other near Hospital del Mar — true love and parenthood transfigure a human, physical apperance included. He believed it applied to him, too, even though his loved one passed away and he wasn't Isabel's biological father. No matter how happy Andrew was about his looks, it never occurred to him to flirt or hookup with anyone, nor was he looking for a relationship. Openly gay men were visible in this city, and unlike for the majority of his life in Russia, now Andrew lived outside oppression. But Pablo was in his heart forever. He just couldn't help feeling it. He remembered the promise he'd made to Pablo about not closing his heart off. But he could barely imagine that someday in the future he could find the kind of love he and Pablo with someone else. Their love was still in his heart, big, pure, raging like storm, and burning like fire. The way he made it manifest today was by raising Pablo's daughter and caring about his parents. They were a family he'd always wanted. And now, he got it.

He didn't forget about the people he had left behind in Russia, either. During the first year, from time to time he called and e-mailed Nathalie, and, just as he promised, he had videochats with Ann over Skype. By the end of 2010, he learned that Nathalie had married Ann's father, and with time they started to communicate more and more rarely. Andrew also kept in touch with Andrew the Resident and made sure that Ilya's father was doing well.

Riding to the parents' house, Andrew found himself recalling the third birthday of Ann. That traumatic day, when her mother didn't even show for the celebration. He remembered how humiliated he felt both for the girl and for himself, and how much ashamed he was of his ex-wife's drunk behavior. But sometimes, trauma, be it a marriage crisis or a fatal illness, brings forth the best in us. He remembered that exactly after that day, his feeling for Pablo became so clear it could no longer be denied, and so big no shame could stop him from professing it. That feeling hadn't been born in a day, of course. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, Andrew realized how his had been growing for three years, through the walls of shame, oppression, and class barriers that stood between them. But Ann's third birthday was the trigger that made him accept what he felt and who he had always been, even though he'd lived his entire previous life in denial of it. Hadn't Nathalie been a neglectful mother to their kid, would he ever had the courage to acknowledge that their marriage was dead? That it had been doomed from the beginning, because of his oppressed sexuality? That he belonged elsewhere, with someone else, in a different job, and in a different culture? Without all that trauma, would he have arrived at the point in his life where he was now? Would Providence (or Fate) have guided him to other pathway to emigration to Spain, to being with the love of his life, to bringing Isabel into the world? Would he have died of depression if he stayed in Russia? He didn't know it for sure. He surrendered to not knowing. Instead, he just realized that he was happy right now and right here, going to see his family and celebrate his daughter's birthday. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, one has to endure a life-shattering trauma in order to rise to life-altering happiness. Maybe, just maybe, it was a universal, immutable law of life.

---

"Hi, Uncle Andrew!" tweeted Isabel, running up to him at the door. She'd always called him Uncle: he and Pablo's parents had arranged to tell her a story about him being her Dad's brother.

"Hey, honey," Andrew replied, taking her into his arms. "Happy birthday, cielito. I've got a gift for you."

She kissed him gently on the cheek and stared at him for a while. The color of her olive-green eyes was different from Pablo's, but they had the same sparkle in them. Andrew never stopped noticing that. Her smile and her features were obviously similar to her father, but molded in a more delicate, feminine manner. To Andrew, she now looked beyond cute in her white frock, contrasting with her smooth swarthy skin and brown, curly hair. She had just turned three years old, but she had already stated many times that her favorite color was white. To Andrew, she was a special child in many ways. Not just because she knew how she'd been born. She started to pronounce words at six months and talk in meaningful sentences when she was one-and-a-half. She was out of diapers when she turned one. She grabbed color pencils and started drawing when she was two. To much delight of her grandmother, drawing became Isabel's favorite activity and consumed the most of her time. Both her grandparents and Andrew had to admit that her pictures looked surprisingly realistic considering her age.

"Hi Andrew!" Don Alberto greeted him as Isabel leapt into the living room and started to unwrap Andrew's gift.

"Hey Dad! How are y'all doing?" Andrew replied, giving him a slight hug. Whenever Isabel was around, Andrew was supposed to call Pablo's parents Mom and Dad because of the story they made up for her.

"Hi, sonny!" Doña Juana called out from the kitchen. "Look at our little treasure. Even on her birthday, she refuses to wear shoes, no matter how much I beg of her!"

Andrew hummed before giving a slight smile.

"She's stubborn, you know. Just like Pablo was," he commented.

Of course, he'd known that Isabel hated to wear shoes. Any footwear, to be clear, from flip-flops to slippers to boots. She started to toddle precociously, at seven months, and at one year she walked steadily, but as soon as her movements became coordinate enough, she learned how to take off her shoes and whined if the grandparents or Andrew put them on her again. It was another foible of hers, and unlike Doña Juana and Don Alberto, Andrew regarded it understandingly. After all, each child was unique in his or her own way, Andrew believed. At home, Isabel was reluctant to wear even socks, rather preferring to wander around the house barefoot. Barefoot. Unlike her grandma and grandpa, Andrew was nothing surprised that she liked to walk barefoot. Because he remembered it.

He remembered every detail about the white-dressed ghost girl he had seen in August, 2009, amidst the culmination of his psychotic desperation. About the mysterious stranger girl in a white frock, the one who guided his car from the backwoods of Catalonia to the place where he was destined to save Pablo from imminent death. In his surrogacy protocal, he didn't control for the sex of transferred embryo, but when the woman who carried Isabel had successfully got pregnant, Andrew had no slightest doubt it was going to be a girl. He recognized her features as she grew up &mdash her big eyes with their magical sparkle, her smile, her hair, her preference for the white color... It seemed supernatural, crazily impossible, but it was nevertheless true. After all, who said that miracles don't happen? In the story of his and Pablo's love, crowned by the birth of Isabel, there had already been many miraculous and unaccountable events that couldn't be ascribed to mere coincidence. But, as the case always is, Andrew kept his memory of that miracle within himself and never shared it with the world. That was between him and God, he believed. And how Isabel was born against overwhelming odds was between him and God, too.

They were sitting in the dining room and having a great holiday meal, rejoining each other in a fluent, lively conversation, celebrating the little girl and watching her sincere joy, and Andrew found himself thinking that life, after all, was amazing. Just nine years ago, could he imagine that he would really end up with something like this? Could he imagine that he would actually move over to Spain? That he would truly love another man and be loved back? That he would be making a career at a large, well-known Spanish hospital, unbelievably located right at the beachfront? That he would commute to work by motorcycle? That he would speak fluent Spanish, think in this language, and become a functioning member of Spanish society and part of a Spanish family, raising with them the daughter of a deceased world-renowned soccer star? Could he really believe that his dreams about purer, better, brighter life would someday actually come true?

Of course, he couldn't. But such is life. Eventually, the justice is not withheld from those who keep seeking for it.

After Isabel gloriously blew out three candles on the holiday cake, she got a big applause from the adults — and the announcement of the biggest surprise of the day. They were going to the sea! She squealed with delight and finished her cake within less than a minute, impatient to get the thrilling experience and prodding Andrew to go sooner. The time was close to half past six p.m., and although the temperature was still warm enough, Andrew wanted to spend a couple of hours at the beach before the sunset, so they didn't have much time to sit around. Doña Juana got the girl in the swimming suit, put a flowery dress over it and despite Isabel's protests slipped light sandals on her tiny feet. Meanwhile, Andrew went upstairs to change into his beach clothes. The guest room where he used to stay had been remade into Isabel's bedroom, but when he was moving out he left in the house some of his belongings so he could come live there for a few days if necessary. Doña Juana had placed Andrew's things into Pablo's bedroom, which otherwise remained unchanged after Pablo had been gone.

Every time Andrew approached the door of that room, he felt his heart in his mouth. By some unknown reason, he always fancied that Pablo would be inside. He fancied that Pablo had never actually died. That Pablo was just taking a nap, so he avoided to disturb him and wake him up. After a noiseless knock on the door — as noiseless as the parents wouldn't hear and think Andrew had gone nuts — he slowly turned the handle with one hand and gently pushed the door with the other, holding his breath. Of course, there was no one in, and his scanning glance only met the neatly made bed and things lying in Pablo's perfectionist, impeccable order. He turned on the light and walked to the closet. After taking out his white beach robe, a pair of denim shorts and sandals, he closed the door and locked it up silently. For a minute of two, he looked at Pablo's clothes still hanging at the wardrobe. As his glance fell upon another shirt or jacket, he remembered when he first saw Pablo sport it, where they were going back then and what they were talking about, and a wave of longing, and lust, and love, and fury, all mixed into one, swept over him. He knew Pablo's favorite things that he'd worn much oftener than others. As he undressed, before putting on the beach clothes, he grabbed out the hanger with a very casual Zara shirt. It was a beige summer shirt, made of a light, fluffy cotton. He knew Pablo had adored this shirt. He sported it nearly every other day of their vacation in Greece. Its texture was somewhat translucent, soft and gentle to the touch, making it ideal for scorchers. Andrew buried his face in the shirt, breathing in through it, trying to feel Pablo's smell. The smell of his body was the sweetest scent Andrew had ever known, and now he could swear he still sensed it in the shirt. The one that hadn't been worn for three years.

He sagged on Pablo's bed and slipped on the shorts and the robe. He hung the beige shirt back into the closet, kissing it a goodbye. Smoothing the bed cover with his hand, he involuntarily remembered what he and Pablo were once doing there. The fruit of what they were doing there was now waiting for Andrew downstairs, and as much as he would like to linger in the place once inhabited by his beloved one, Isabel was waiting to get the promised present.

Andrew started the engine of the white Mercedes-Benz limousine and, as always, he couldn't help enjoying the noble, low-pitched roar of the turbocharged diesel. The car was almost nine years old now, and the mileage approached sixty thousand miles, but to Andrew it felt just as gorgeous, smooth, and powerful as it had been back in 2004, when he tasted it almost new, with Pablo picking him up at El Prat and driving to his hotel at Avinguda Diagonal. So far, the Mercedes hadn't required any repair beyond regular maintenance. It still looked shiny and magnificent amidst the majority of economy cars in the city traffic. This car, just the person who once drove it, looked like a pure perfection to Andrew, while newer Mercedes models, quite different in design, didn't appeal to his aesthetic taste as much. He was now the official owner of the car, and he wasn't going to sell or trade it in for another. Maybe, he was so attached to it since it remained of the memories about his and Pablo's secret honeymoon and their morning trips to the beach. Now, the Mercedes stayed in Pablo's parents' garage, and Andrew rarely drove it — the bike was much more practical for everyday use within the downtown. He took the car twice a month for grocery shopping, when stuffing heavy grocery bags on the bike was not an option. When he wasn't at work, he was always eager to drive Doña Juana and Don Alberto wherever they needed to go in the city. He believed it would be better for them than taking cabs. Don Alberto's developing cataract couldn't be operated and his sight continued to grow worse, which made driving increasingly dangerous. Andrew's bond with Pablo's parents grew stronger over time, and he was concerned with their health and safety as much as with Isabel's well-being.

Now, without much hesitation, Andrew decided to take her to the Barceloneta beach, to the place where he and Pablo had met. Once buckled up in the child safety seat, the girl didn't forget to immediately kick her sandals off. As they drove, Isabel gazed around and up through the glass panorama roof, her curious eyes scanning the streets she hadn't seen before. Crossing the entire city through dense evening traffic, the ride took about half an hour and Andrew only smiled at the memory of horrible traffic in Moscow, which over the years of commute wasted days and months of his life.

They pulled into the parking lot, and in order to not make the defiant kid put on the shoes, Andrew just took Isabel into his arms and carried her walking through the sand. The working day was now over in the majority of workplaces, but people seemed to be just as few as they had been a few hours before. Andrew knew that in September the sea felt already too cold for most citizens, even though the sun still felt hot during the day and the air was pleasantly warm. Now, the sun was setting down, and there was no need to put on the sunscreen. At the first sight of the sea, Isabel tried to break free from Andrew's arms, and he barely kept her when he took her dress off after spreading down the towel a dozen feet away from the waterline. As the girl ran frolicking into the surf, Andrew kept an eye on her, infating the swim ring at the same time. Then he took off the shift and chased her into the blue salty water, enjoying her joyous screams echoing in the air. Isabel was obviously in her element, and watching how easily and smoothly way she moved in the water, Andrew doubted if she actually needed a swim ring. He hadn't swum for a week, and now he could sense that the water had become a little bit cooler but was still comfortable. Watching his daughter, he couldn't afford taking a normal swimming workout, but seeing the wholehearted joy in her eyes made him happier than covering a thousand strokes. This was a special moment, the one she would remember forever. He found himself thinking about his and Pablo's summer in Greece. He recalled Ann, his first child, when she saw the sea for the first time, and thought that in some ways all children were pretty much the same.

However, in some ways Isabel was more like him than Ann was, despite the absence of shared DNA. Isabel adored pineapples. Yes, at the age of three not only was she sure about her favorite color, but also about her favorite fruit. Much like Andrew, the girl could feast on pineapples all day long and never get enough. That's why pineapples became an all-season must in Pablo's parents' fridge. This is why the dessert at her birthday celebration was, of course, a pineapple-and-mango cheesecake. This is why, after twenty minutes of romping in the water they came ashore and shared a snack of sliced pineapples and walnuts dipped in yogurt and orange jam. In moments like that, unconsciously drifting back to the memories of Greece, Andrew felt as if Pablo was still around, as if he only needed to close his eyes for an instant and just then he would find Pablo sitting beside on the towel or swimming in the sea. Holding the girl in his lap, he realized for an umpteenth time that she was the gift Pablo left him before going away. And even though he was almost certain we would single for life, he was also certain that thanks to Isabel, this growing beauty of a human being he deeply loved and cared for, he would never, ever feel lonely.

After the snack, Isabel got down to materializing her creative energy. She grabbed the toy kit and started putting up a sand castle. Andrew lay sprawled on the towel, enjoying the rays of setting sun, and couldn't stop watching the kid completely absorbed in the process, soggy sand dripping from her tiny hands as she sculpted the details with the tools.

They plunged into the sea once again before leaving the beach. It was seven p.m. and the sun had almost slid down to the horizon behind the sail-shaped silhouette of the W hotel. Flooding the waterline with orange light that softly faded into the azure blue sky, the sunlight now cast long shadows on the ground. The air was getting noticeably crisp and a light breeze picked up. Again, Andrew carried barefoot Isabel in his arms coming back to the parking lot. After a few hours of vigorous activity, the girl was tired and drowsy and dozed off instantly after Andrew had secured her in the child seat.

As he drove home, he eased the gas gently and cruised slowly in the right lane. No matter how silent and smooth the Mercedes engine was, he avoided any slightest noise, any jerky acceleration and braking, guarding the blissful slumber of his daughter. Andrew was now driving on the same long route that he and Pablo had followed on the day Pablo bought the motorcycle, the route going along the seafront through Passeig de Colom, and then turning right onto La Rambla. Andrew had an overwhelming sense of fulfillment thinking that he had lived a day where everything had been exactly the way it should be. Yes, he still missed Pablo terribly and he still was in love with him, but just like Pablo had asked him, he learned to be happy without Pablo beside, but with Pablo in his heart.

"Uncle Andrew," Isabel tweeted from the rear seat, breaking the silence and interrupting the course of his thoughts, "may we go to the sea tomorrow?"

Andrew peeked in the rear-view mirror, meeting her intent gaze. He didn't notice she'd woken up.

"Of course, sweetie," he murmured. "Did you like the beach?"

"I loved it. And the day after tomorrow, would you take me there again?" she begged.

"If I'm back from work before late, we can go there almost every day," Andrew reassured. "But you know, baby, the sea and the beach are wonderful in the morning, and I can go with you in the morning only on Saturdays and Sundays, when I'm free from work. This Sunday, for example, I can come pick you up after breakfast, okay?"

"Great!"

"And then, we can visit the aquarium. We were there two months ago with Grandpa, and you liked that a lot, remember?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded. "And I also remember that after the aquarium we ate pizza, and you scared me then, Uncle Andrew," Isabel stated.

"Did I scare you, baby?" he gaped.

"Yes," she said. "You said you were dying for a pizza, and I thought you were actually dying in exchange for a pizza. Grandpa said you should never talk like that, 'cause words become true."

"Oh, man, I meant I just wanted a pizza very badly," Andrew grunted.

"You shouldn't say so, anyway."

Hearing the word dying, Andrew realized that exactly three years ago Pablo had passed away, but neither Andrew nor his parents wanted to remember that day now. As the date of his death and Isabel's birthday were the same, the family decided to not darken the celebration of the kid's main holiday with mourning and instead always commemorate Pablo on his birthday, November 10th.

"You've done a great job today," Andrew admitted, shaking off sad thoughts. "I mean your sand castle."

"Wow. Do you really think it was good?" the girl asked with her eyes lighting up.

"It was wonderful, no doubt. Not any worse than your plasticine models."

"Thank you," she smiled.

"Your Dad also loved building sand castles, you know," Andrew remarked.

"Really?" she wondered. "He'd never told me."

Andrew winced at her words, as if a shot of electricity ran through his body. He turned his gaze, fixed on the road, to the rear-view mirror and saw Isabel immediately look away, her cheeks flushed.

"What?" he croaked, hoping his ears failed him. "What have you just said?"

"I'm sorry, Uncle Andrew," she murmured. "I shouldn't have told you."

"Told me what?" Andrew repeated, keeping his stare at her, with no conscious notice that he was approaching a red light and needed to brake.

The girl shook her head ashamedly, keeping silent.

"Did you ever talk to your Dad, sweetheart?" Andrew urged, dropping his voice to a gentle whisper.

After a few moments of hesitation Isabel gave a slight nod.

"Oh my God. When?" Andrew continued.

"Many times, Uncle Andrew," she mumbled, still staring away. Andrew was struck hearing that her childish high-pitched voice suddenly started to sound like that of a grown-up. Like the voice of the white phantom girl who'd pulled him over in August, 2009, and directed him to the motel where Pablo would otherwise have ended his life.

"He comes to me every Sunday night," Isabel said hesitantly. "After Grandma puts me to bed and puts out the lights, I can't fall asleep 'cause I know Daddy is going to come."

Andrew swallowed through his tightened throat.

"A few minutes after, when everything stills, he knocks gently on the door and comes in. The door closes noiselessly behind him, and his steps are noiseless as well. He smiles at me and walks over to my bed."

"How does he look?" Andrew hissed, feeling his heart thump against his chest.

"Daddy is handsome! You know, he looks more beautiful than Grandma shows me in the pictures! His face is kind and loving. His eyes are big and beaming. He's always dressed in all white, that's why white is my favorite color.

Andrew could now feel blood drumming in his ear. And he couldn't understand why such news got broken to him during driving.

Then he sits down on my bed," she continued, "says hi and kisses me on the forehead. When he came for the first time, I was scared and felt like screaming, but he hushed me saying that nobody — neither Granny, nor Grandpa, nor you — should ever know he comes to visit me. I shouldn't have told you that."

"Dear God, baby... I don't know," Andrew murmured, in full vulnerability. "But I won't tell anyone about it. I know how to keep secrets."

"I hope so," she said.

Andrew drew a long sigh, feeling beads of sweat run down his forehead. In the ensuing silence, he didn't know whether to interrogate her further.

"Do you believe me, Uncle Andrew?" she asked. "Do you really believe that Dad comes to talk to me?"

He hesitated before answering. Maybe the kid was having a mental illness, still going unnoticed?

"I believe you. I trust you absolutely, just like I have trusted your Dad."

"Would you like to know what we talk about?" she continued, anticipating his question.

"Well, unless your Dad asks you to keep it as a secret..."

"I've already revealed to you my secret, so I've nothing to lose."

Andrew couldn't believe that it was a three-year-old girl speaking. Idling before another red traffic light, he pinched his cheek to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"First, Daddy asks how I am doing and kisses me again when I say I'm fine. Then, he wonders how you, Grandma and Grandpa are, and he says he misses y'all badly. He says he wishes he could come talk to y'all but he can't. He also says that y'all love me dearly, and I shouldn't make y'all upset. He says he's sorry that he can't be with me all the time, and then I say that I'm so glad to see him even once a week. Then, I tell him about what's been going on and he listens attentively. When I finish, he tells me something about his life. Every time it's a different story. Like, once he told me how he saw the sea for the first time. He told me it was a sheer bliss, and he'd always dreamed to take me to the sea too. He is so sorry he can't do it now. He wishes he could be as kind to me as Grandma and Grandpa had been to him. They had put all their hopes and trust into him, and now they're putting them into me. He says I should love them as deeply just as I love him."

"Man, that's awesome." Andrew said, the most vulnerable question hanging in his mind. He stayed silent for half a minute before finally asking it, his voice cracked. "Does he tell you anything about me?".

For the first time over recent minutes Isabel stared him in the eye through the rear-view mirror, her gaze piercing.

"Daddy says you were the best brother in the world. He says he is truly proud of what you did for him."

Andrew's vision grew blurry, and he thought he'd better come to a halt. But he drove in the middle lane of Avinguda Diagonal and the traffic was dense. There was no way.

"Is this all he says about me?" Andrew squeezed from his throat, struggling to focus his sight on the road.

"He also says he misses you very much," Isabel said.

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing."

Andrew drew a deep breath, regaining his composure.

"How long does he stay with you?" he murmured after a while.

"I don't know, Uncle Andrew. Every time, I beg him to tell me a story. He's silent for a few moments, then his eyes light up; he puts his arm around me and starts to narrate. His voice is so soft, and his stories are so interesting. I listen to him carefully, but then I fall asleep. When I awake in the morning, Dad is gone and I can't even remember what the story was about."

"Your Dad always was a great story-teller, you know," Andrew said. This was a total vulnerability overdose. He wanted to wrap up this crazy conversation. He wanted Isabel to fall asleep again, and then just believe he never heard what he'd heard.

"There's one thing Daddy never tells me," Isabel continued. "When I ask him why he had left us, he falls silent and just stares at me with a smile. This looks like a secret he's keeping from me. Do you know why?"

"It's no secret, sweetheart," Andrew responded, figuring how to explain dilative cardiomyopathy to a three-year-old. "The thing is, your Dad's had a kind, big heart. With time, it just grew bigger..."

"And why does a heart grow big?" the girl wondered.

Andrew flashed a sad smile.

"They say a heart grows big because of big love. You know, it's difficult to live with a kind, big heart, 'cause its magnitude doesn't only mean big power. It also means great vulnerability. Your Dad's heart grew bigger and bigger, and one day it just... failed. It broke."

"Broke?" Isabel asked, her voice mistrustful.

Andrew nodded.

"When I break something, like a doll or a toy or a pencil, Grandma always gives me a new one instead," she stated. "Could someone anyone give Daddy a new heart?"

"With a heart, it's not as simple as with a toy," Andrew explained. "No one could give him a new one. When you grow up, you'll see."

She didn't seem okay with such an uncertain answer. But instead of insisting, she just turned away and closed her eyes. Both were silent for the rest of the trip.

---

TWO MONTHS LATER

After four days of fierce storm and torrential downpours, strange for this time of the year, in the morning of November 10th, 2013, the sun finally came out to Barcelona. The day was breaking gorgeous, Andrew thought as he rode to the parents' house at a quarter past nine. Because of the weather, his motorcycle stayed unused over recent days, and now he could finally enjoy riding it again as he raced through the light weekend traffic. He had a slight pulsating headache after a sleep-deprived night shift, but he didn't think he needed a pill. He knew the headache would soon go away as he breathed the crisp, fresh air on his way to get a coffee made by Doña Juana — the most delicious and energizing coffee Andrew had ever tasted.

Family breakfasts on weekends were a normal thing, commonly followed by Andrew and Isabel going out in the city, but this day was one of the rare occasions when they all would go somewhere else. Andrew behind the wheel, Don Alberto riding shotgun and Isabel with her grandmother in the rear, they would drive to the cemetery for an annual memorial they always held on Pablo's birthday. Pablo willed to be buried rather than cremated, and his wish was honor, even though the club offered a dedicated place for his ashes at Les Corts urban Cemetery. Instead, his grave at a newly built cemetry outside the city looked like a better place to rest in peace. Andrew held Isabel in his arms as they stood before the black marble monument for a few minutes in silence, each of the adults remembering Pablo in their own way, Isabel now looking strangely wistful. The grass and most of the trees at the cemetery remained green despite the autumn, and Andrew found himself thinking that after nearly four years of living in Catalonia, not in the least did he cease to marvel at ever-flourishing southern nature and mild Mediterranean climate. Likewise, with years of coming to Pablo's tombstone, he could feel increasingly clearly that his feelings didn't go away, not even a bit. Today, he smiled at the realizatio that some things in life are truly timeless.

At the memorial dinner, for which Doña Juana every year cooked one of Pablo's favorite dishes, the parents talked a lot. They remembered and relived important events of Pablo's short yet amazing life, viewing his photos and reading congratulation letters their son once wrote for their birthdays and anniversaries. It was the third time the family celebrated Pablo's birthday without him, and every year, on this special day, Andrew learned something new from the parents. In a few black-and-white photos he saw Pablo as a toddler, then as a small child in color pictures, then he watched the course of his boyhood and adolescence. Six-year-old Pablo diving in the surf. Nine-year-old Pablo clinging to the wheel in the driver seat of Don Alberto's old car, Doña Juana smiling beside him. The first photo on soccer ground taken when Pablo was eleven. Various pictures from vacations and trips in Spain showed how quickly he grew up. The first picture at Camp Nou, Pablo's being sixteen, wearing the scarlet-and-blue uniform, was where Andrew could already recognize the would-be celebrity, self-confident and smiling with a special twinkle in his eyes. After his school graduation photos came the timeline of Pablo's athletic victories, captured by professional photographers. Separately lay his selfies taken during the journeys all over the world. He waved and smiled against the background of Manhattan skyscrapers in New York City, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Duomo Cathedral in Milan, the Colosseum in Rome, the Tower Bridge in London, Christ The Redeemer and the Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro. On his newly bought iPad, Andrew played a video he had composed from numerous recordings of FC Barcelona games, focusing on Pablo as he artfully scored goals.

"He would have been thirty-one now," Don Alberto muttered watching the video. "Three years have passed. I could've sworn it was yesterday."

Doña Juana squeezed his wrinkled hand.

"Uncle Andrew," Isabel asked, "why don't I see you and Dad together in the photos?"

Andrew's mouth set into a straight line and blood drained from his face. The grandparents were also stupefied by how easily a simple question from a child cornered them in their common lie about Andrew being Pablo's brother.

And really, why? Andrew had never considered this simple question, hidden under the layer of shame covering their relationship for the most of its existence. Now, he thought whether the same question had ever occurred Doña Juana and Don Alberto, and if it had, what story they had to answer it. Why, over years of pretending to be friends — moreover, good friends — he and Pablo never happened to take a casual picture together?

Andrew knew the answer he hoped they didn't know. Because of fear. And shame. Because Pablo was a celebrity athlete, living a public life. They had a lot of beautiful moments to capture with a picture, but both dreaded to think what would happen if it leaked out of their phones. If Pablo's parents or Andrew's wife saw them, and from the way they looked at each other it would become obvious that they're more than just friends.

Had Pablo been here, he would have quickly invented a story for the girl, but Andrew's brain didn't work this way. He wasn't a good storyteller, he believed, especially when in a shame storm. He avoided Doña Juana's and Don Alberto's eyes, struggling to regain his composure.

"I just... you know... I lived in another city for a long time," he stuttered finally. "And your Dad preferred to be shot alone. Someone famous like him should be alone in the photos."

"Famous? What does that mean?" she said.

Andrew fancied the girl was kidding. How could anyone not understand such a simple and yet loaded, the word that had defined Pablo's life and gotten in the way of their relationship for so long? Though, the kid was just three years old, he thought.

"It means," Don Alberto responded instead, "that not only three of us knew him and loved him. A lot of people your Dad even didn't know — hundreds and thousands of people — also appreciated and respected him."

Andrew paused the video as the camera zoomed in on Camp Nou tribunes.

"All these people, darling," he crooned to Isabel, "watched your Dad play and admired him."

Isabel hummed, processing the words. Andrew tapped the Play button again, launching the video and hoping he had steered the conversation away from a suddenly emerged uncomfortable question.

"It must feel great when so many people love you," the girl suggested.

"It's also overwhelming, you know," Andrew replied, watching as triumphant teammates cuddled on the field after another goal Pablo had scored. "When so many people watch your life, you have to be very careful to not disappoint them. People are so different that looking perfect and not disapointing anyone is... almost impossible."

Granted, the family weren't the only people who remembered Pablo on his birthday. By this day, UNICEF had completed a junior football school in Tarragona and an orphanage in Palma de Mallorca, both projects financed from the huge fund Pablo had bequeathed to the organization. The news had been announced via UNICEF Twitter and Facebook pages in the early morning of that day and got thousands of retweets and likes. Pablo was gone, but he wasn't forgotten. His memory was immortalized by these projects. The article published on UNICEF's official page, metaphorically titled A truly big heart and featuring one of his best pictures, also mentioned that he had been posthumously awarded a title of UNICEF Good Will Ambassador. Andrew discovered the article occasionally, scrolling through his Facebook feed a couple of hours ago, and now he was reading aloud people's comments on the post, full of love and respect for Pablo. For an instant, Andrew found himself thinking that maybe, just maybe, scores of these faithful admirers who still didn't forget Pablo after years of his death, wouldn't have judged and rejected him if Pablo had come out. Maybe. Now, there was no way of knowing it for sure.

"Uncle Andrew, you gotta take me to the sea today," Isabel suddenly said, interrupting Andrew as he read.

Andrew and the parents exchanged perplexed glances, thinking they'd misheard the girl.

"What?" Andrew muttered.

"I absolutely need you to take me to the sea," the girl stated again. "Today."

She pierced Andrew with intent gaze, and he saw in her eyes the same resolve and perseverance that he had always seen in Pablo's. The same audacity and authority he had seen in the eyes of the girl who'd pulled him over in the middle of a country road in August, 2009.

"What for, darling?" Doña Juana asked. "The sea is very cold now, and yesterday there was a storm. You won't be able to bathe in the sea."

"Grandma, I don't want to bathe in the sea. I just need Uncle Andrew to take me to the sea."

"Why?"

"Just because," the girl argued.

"What does that mean, honey?" Don Alberto butted in.

"Uncle Andrew, please tell them you're okay taking me to the sea today," Isabel begged on.

Andrew flushed, embarrassed for some reason he couldn't pinpoint, his mind spinning, his throat growing dry and tightened. He was unable to utter a word. He remembered that the last time they had gone together to the beach was early October, more than a month ago, and back then the water got already so icy that he could barely swim a hundred feet. Running out of surf, he was hit by a gust of autumn wind, and he hurriedly wrapped himself in a towel, every muscle of his body quavering. Much as loved swimming, he thought he would develop pneumonia in a few days. Needless to say, he didn't allow Isabel into the sea back then.

"Please, Uncle Andrew! Take me there just for half an hour!" the girl pleaded. "Please, I need this so much!"

"Isabel, this doesn't sound like a good idea," Don Alberto urged. "Next summer, when it gets warm, you will go to the beach with Andrew, and you will sunbathe and swim in the sea for as long as you want. Now, it's no time."

"I need it now!" Isabel insisted. "I don't need to sunbathe and swim, I just..." she paused, gasping, "I just need to sit on the beach with Uncle Andrew and watch the sea!"

Her cracking voice suggested she was about to start crying, but Andrew remained wordless.

She leapt down from her chair and ran up to him. After climbing up to his lap, she stood up and threw her tiny arms around his neck. Pressing her lips to his ear, she whispered something that Doña Juana and Don Alberto couldn't make out. They only watched as Andrew momentarily grew pale and flinched at her words before clasping her tighter to his bosom with one hand and stroking her back with the other.

"It's okay," he murmured after a while. "We're going to the beach now."

Don Alberto cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. "Really?"

Andrew nodded, with no excitement visible thought.

"Be careful then," Don Alberto said. "She may catch cold."

"Don't worry, Dad," Andrew replied, still looking away eyes. "I won't let her get cold. We'll be right back in a couple of hours."

---

Andrew's heart raced as they sped towards Barceloneta. In the middle of a Sunday afternoon, the traffic was fluent. With Isabel buckled in the rear, he was driving in a manner that wasn't outright unsafe, but more jerky than usual. Instead of cruising and feasting his eyes on the scenery of the city, he now focused on the road, floored the gas when approaching yellow lights, started aggressively after idling at a red ones, changed lanes frequently and sped in front of cameras a couple of times. Try as he might, he couldn't calm down and drive smoothly. He was too unnerved by Isabel's words, even though he knew they could just a child's fancy. No matter whether he was going crazy, or Isabel was going crazy, or both of them were, none of that felt good. As Andrew centered the road with his fixed gaze, briefly peeking in side mirrors on lane changes, Isabel sat silent all the way through, but what she'd whispered into his ear was still echoing in his mind.

"I will make a birthday gift to Dad. It's on the beach. You really need to see it."

Andrew thought there would be very few people by the sea. Last Sunday, he'd went out with Isabel to Tibidabo Amusement Park, then he came back home for a nap, and then rode to Barceloneta by bike to take a stroll along the seafront. It was cold now, but he loved the sea in autumn. With his iPod — former Pablo's iPod — playing the music, he slowly paced along the elevated embankment, watching the broad sandy beach beneath. Save for small clusters of teenagers hanging out before school the next day, few joggers, and rare tourists who making pictures on the background of the Mediterranean, the beach looked deserted. Andrew loved it that way. It seemed unbelievable that just three months before, in August, it had been so jammed that one could barely find a spot to spread a towel.

This Sunday, however, people on the beach were not that few. Sun was shining brightly since early morning, as if trying to make amends for the days of storm and encouraging the citizens and visitors previously locked indoors to finally go out and breath in the spirit of the city. The air was completely still, the temperature had risen to seventy degrees. When Andrew stepped out of the car, he felt that the rays of sun felt oddly burning, in an almost summery way. He put off his jacket and dropped it on the rear seat before unfastening Isabel and taking her into his arms.

"He's never come to me anymore," the girl said as he carried her to the beach from the parking lot.

"Who?" Andrew asked, although he obviously knew the answer.

"Daddy," Isabel said. "He hadn't come to talk to me, never once since my birthday. Every Sunday night, when I was in bed, I waited for him to come and I couldn't fall asleep without him for hours, but he just wasn't there. I cried, hoping that Dad would hear me, comfort me and kiss me, but he just never came. I think he's angry at me."

"Angry at you, why? Have you done anything wrong?"

"Yes," she sniffed. "He asked me to never tell anyone that he comes to talk to me, and I blurted that to you."

"Oh no," Andrew mumbled, uncertainty obvious in his voice. "Dad can hardly be mad at you for this. He'd always trusted me, and he'd kept no secrets from me."

Isabel stared at him, her piercing glance as if trying to test whether or not he told her the truth, and easily finding out he didn't. Andrew knew full well that by the end of Pablo's life, both of them had kept secrets from each other.

"And why doesn't he come, then?" the girl demanded.

"Maybe he thinks that you're already grown-up and can do without him," Andrew said, hating himself for trying to bullshit amidst vulnerability.

"But I miss him so much! I can't do without him, why doesn't he see that?"

"He does see that," Andrew reassured. "He sees you and watches you all the time, wherever you are, and he loves you as deeply as no one else can."

"Is it possible to love someone and not want to spend any time with them?" Isabel asked.

"It is possible," Andrew responded, and now he was telling the truth. "It is exactly what your Dad did when he was dying. He didn't want to spend time with Grandma, Grandpa and me. Not because he didn't love us or he was mad at us. He just didn't want us to watch him in pain, 'cause when you truly love someone, you don't want them to get hurt. Does that make sense?""

He paused for a moment, seeing if Isabel was getting it.

Maybe, the same goes for you now. Maybe, just maybe, Dad comes to you no longer so that you wouldn't be hurt."

Isabel shrugged, not convinced. The word hurt didn't make much sense to her yet, for all her precociousness.

"Anyway, I need to tell him I'm sorry," she said, "for giving our secret away. Maybe, if I make him a birthday gift, he will forgive me."

Guessing what gift she was talking about, Andrew stayed silent. As he stepped into the sand, he noticed that it was surprisingly dry. The air felt strangely warm for November, and some people even lay sunbathing on the towels, taking advantage of the moment. In distance, a dozen surfers were riding foamy waves that rolled over the azure surface of the Mediterranean.

Andrew put Isabel on her own feet and took her hand. He started spreading the towel in the middle of the beach, but the girl pulled him closer to the waterline.

"No way, sweetheart. You can't bathe," he said. "The sea is blistering cold."

"I'm not gonna bathe, Uncle Andrew. Don't worry."

"Then why do we have to come closer to the water?"

"So that I could show you the gift," she explained, and now it didn't make much sense to Andrew.

"You trust me, don't you?" she asked.

She was beginning to sound like Pablo, he thought to himself, and her mysteriousness really scared him. He steeled himself and just followed her, thought. A fifteen feet away from the surf, he put down the towel and sagged onto it, taking a deep breath of the salty air. Years passed by, but he didn't cease to love it. He put off the shirt and took Isabel into his lap. For a couple of minutes, both sat silent, watching the sea.

"Well, it's the time to show you the gift," Isabel chirped a few moments before Andrew was going to break the silence. She stood up in front of him, her eyes beaming, her smile angelic.

"So where is it?" Andrew asked.

"Uncle Andrew, you close your eyes, I'll start making it, okay? And you shouldn't open them until I tell you I'm done."

Andrew cocked an eyebrow. "Close my eyes? You sure?"

She nodded.

"Will you run away, baby? Maybe you wanna play hide-and-seek, uh?"

"No, Uncle. I will be here, around you."

"Aren't you going to dive into the sea?"

"No way. The sea is too cold, I remember. I'll wait till the next summer," Isabel said, sounding confident.

"Do you promise you won't freak out?"

"I promise, trust me," she admitted. "And you gotta promise you'll keep your eyes shut until I tell you to open them. If you peep before I'm ready, you'll ruin the gift, and Dad will be disappointed."

"Oh, I promise," Andrew said and kissed her on the forehead before squeezing his eyes shut. He could trust her, he knew after all. Nothing bad would happen to her. Not only because there were other people out there on the beach. Also because Pablo was watching her from above, wherever and whenever she was. Even if he no more came to talk to her, he would still keep his eye on her. With his eyes shut, Andrew was all ears now, trying to guess what Isabel was doing aruond. His mind drifted back to the day when he closed Pablo's eyes with a blindfold, and thanks to what he did he could make the most precious present ever for Pablo. Maybe, today it was Isabel's turn to do the same?

Andrew waited for a while, shuffling on the towel with impatience. The sound of waves drowned out the indistinct murmur of the beach.

"Are you here, sweetie?" he called out, keeping his eyes shut.

"I'm around, Uncle Andrew, everything's okay," he heard Isabel scream. From the sound of her voice, he estimated that she was about a dozen feet away. "Wait a little more, I'll soon be done with the gift!"

"Okay."

He didn't know how many minutes passed as he sat anticipating her surprise. He imagined that Pablo had come to them right now and sat down beside him on the towel, within an arm's reach, watching Isabel with a loving smile, just like himself. He couldn't hear Pablo's breath, he couldn't touch his hand, but somehow he literally sensed his presence. When Andrew finally heard Isabel's approaching light steps, he wanted to hear her say, "Hi, Daddy". But she didn't say that.

"Uncle Andrew! I'm finished," she said instead, "but please keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them," she tweeted. "Just take my hand and follow me."

Andrew stood up, hardly keeping his balance with no sight, and caught the tiny hand Isabel stretched out to him. She led him towards the waterline, as he could guess from the increasing sound of of the surf, he felt her hand was wet and cold.

"Did you bathe, honey? Why is your hand wet?" he asked worriedly.

"I didn't bathe, Uncle Andrew, just as I promised you. I needed to wash my hands after working."

He made nine steps before Isabel stopped him. "We're here. Now open your eyes. This is my gift for Daddy," she pointed out.

A couple feet away from the water, Andrew saw the sculpture of a heart, molded from soggy sand. Reflecting her innocent notions of what a human heart looked like, it was twice as big as the cake they'd made for her birthday, and broader than Andrew's entire chest. The surface of the heart was smoothed with her tiny hands and decorated with a dozen seashells she must have collected around. Andrew turned his admiring glance between the sculpture and the girl, her dress wet and daubed with sand in the bottom, but her eyes beaming exactly like Pablo's.

"Daddy once told me he lives in the skies," Isabel said. "Do you think the heart is big enough so he could see it from there?"

"Oh, it's perfect," Andrew murmured, his throat growing tight.

"Do you think he would like it?"

"He'd love it, of that I'm sure."

She smiled gratefully, and Andrew lifted her in his arms and kissed her on the velvet skin of her cheek. She kissed him back and for a few moments, both stared at the heart silently.

"Today is Sunday," Isabel said. "I hope Daddy will come to me tonight and I will wish him happy birthday."

"He's gonna come tonight, sweetheart, just believe that," Andrew said, his voice cracking. He clasped the girl tighter to his chest, and looked up to the cloudless sky. Staring into its infinite depth, for the first time in more than three years, and for the first time since Pablo's funeral, he felt his eyes were again welling up with unbidden, searing male tears. But those were not tears of pain.

Those were tears of happiness.

---

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