"She was the daughter of one of our gardeners and one of our maids. Letícia was born well below our station to them. My mother told me that servants were for serving, not marrying. It is part of why I dropped my mother's surname and took Letícia's father's when we married." He paused and set his palms down on his knees.

"Today, in a very small part, I understood where that came from. A misguided sense of protectiveness. I would love to order my son back home, to keep him away from... this. But I know he won't go. The months you two were apart were some of his most miserable here in America. I almost visited then. Just to make him stop working all the time."