Elena looked surprised.
"What do you mean?"
Mateo shrugged.
"He looks like he's doing math in his head all the time."
Elena smiled at the observation, although it made her uncomfortable.
"Your dad has a lot of responsibilities," she explained.
"Is he sad?"
The question was simple.
The answer was not.
Elena wanted to protect her son from worries that he was too young to carry.
But she also knew children could sense when adults were avoiding the truth.
"Sometimes grown-ups get tired and worried," she said gently. "But your dad loves you very much."
Mateo nodded.
He already knew that.
Love had never been the part he doubted.
What he wanted to understand was why people who loved each other could still seem so unhappy.
That night, he took several of his favorite toy cars into his bedroom and lined them up beside his pillow.
He invented a story in which the cars belonged to a rescue team.
