To which Amaro only laughed and said, “I know many a man whose hands rebelled against him—and other parts as well!”

  Amaro was a lawyer. More to the point, he was not stupid. So he knew the futility of trying to resist the I.F. Nor was he insensitive to the great honor of having a son that the I.F. wanted to take away from him. In fact, when he railed to everyone about the tyranny of these “child-stealing internationalists,” it was really his way of boasting that he had spawned a possible savior of the world. The tiny blinking monitor implanted in his son’s spine just below the skull was a badge for his father.

  Then Amaro set about destroying his son with love.

  Nothing was to be denied this boy that the world wanted to take away from Amaro. He went with his father everywhere—as soon as he could walk and use a toilet, so there was no burden or mess to deal with. And when Amaro was at home, young Bonito was indulged in all his whims. “The boy wants to play in the trees, so let him.”

  “But he’s so little, and he climbs so high, the fall would be so far.”

  “Boys climb, they fall. Do you think my Bonito is not tough enough to deal with it? How else will he learn?”

  When Bonito refused to go to bed, or to turn his light out when he finally did, because he wanted to read, then Amaro said, “Will you stifle genius? If nighttime is when his mind is active, then you no more curtail him than you would demand that an owl can only hunt in the day!”

  And when Bonito demanded sweets, well, Amaro made sure that there was an endless supply of them in the house. “He’ll get tired of them,” said Amaro.

  But these things did not always lead where one might have thought, for Bonito, without knowing it, was determined to rescue himself from his father’s love. Listening to his father and understanding more than even Amaro guessed, Bonito realized that getting tired of sweets was what his father expected—so he no longer asked for them. The boxes of candy languished and were finally contributed to a local orphanage.

  Likewise, Bonito deliberately fell from trees—low branches at first, then higher and higher ones, learning to overcome his fear of falling and to avoid injury. And he began to understand that he was not nocturnal afterward, that what he read in the daze of sleepiness was ill-remembered by morning, but what he read by daylight after a good night of sleep stayed with him.

  For Bonito was, in fact, born to be a disciple, and if his mentor imposed no discipline on him, Bonito would find it in his teachings all the same. Bonito heard everything, even that which was not actually said.

  When Bonito was five, he finally became aware of his mother.

  Oh, he had known her all along. He had run to her with his scrapes and his hungers. Her hands had been on him, caressing him, her soft voice also a caress, all the days of his life. She was like the air he breathed. Father was the dazzling sun in the bright blue sky; Mother was the earth beneath his feet. Everything came from her, but he did not see her, he was so dazzled.

  Until one day, Bonito’s attention wandered from one of his father’s familiar sermons to one of the visitors who had come to hear him. Mother had brought in a tray of simple food—cut-up fruits and raw vegetables. But she had included a plate of the sweet orange flatbread she sometimes made, and it happened that Bonito noticed the moment when the visitor picked up one of the crackers and broke off a piece and put it in his mouth.

  The visitor had been nodding at the things that Father was saying. But he stopped. Stopped chewing, as well. For a moment, Bonito thought the man intended to take the bite of flatbread out of his mouth. But no, he was savoring it. His eyebrows rose. He looked at the flatbread that remained in his hand, and there was reverence in his attitude when he put another piece in his mouth.

  Bonito watched the man’s face. Ecstasy? No, perhaps mere delight.

  And when the man left, he stepped apart from the circle of admirers around his father and went to the kitchen.

  Bonito followed him, leaving his father’s conversation behind in order to hear this one:

  “Señora, may I take more of this flatbread with me?”

  Mother blushed and smiled shyly. “Did you like it?”

  “I will not insult you by asking for the recipe,” the man said. “I know that no description can capture what you put into this bread. But I beg you to let me carry some away so I can eat it in my own garden and share it with my wife.”

  With a sweet eagerness, Mother wrapped up most of what remained and gave it to the man, who bowed over the paper bag as she handed it to him. “You,” the man said, “are the secret treasure of this house.”

  At those words, Mother’s shyness became cold. Bonito realized at once that the man had crossed some invisible line; the man realized it as well. “Señora, I am not flirting with you. I spoke from the heart. What your husband says, I could read, or hear from others. What you have made here, I can have only from your hand.” Then he bowed again, and left.

  Bonito knew the orange flatbread was delicious. What he had not realized till now was that it was unusually so. That strangers would value it.

  Mother began to sing a little song in the kitchen after the man left the room.

  Bonito went back out into the salon to see how the man merely waved a brief good-bye to Father, and then rushed away clutching his prize, the bag of flatbread.

  A tiny part of Bonito was jealous. That flatbread would have been his to eat all through the next day.

  But another part of Bonito was proud. Proud of his mother. It had never happened before. It was Father one was supposed to be proud of. He understood that instinctively, and it had been reinforced by so many visitors who had turned to him while waiting for their chance to say good-bye to Father, and said something like this: “You’re so lucky to live in the house of this great man.” Or, more obliquely, “You live here in the heartbeat of Spain.” But always, it was about Father.

  Not this time.

  From that moment, Bonito began to be aware of his mother. He actually noticed the work she did to make Father’s life happen. The way she dealt with all the tradesmen, the gardener and the maid who also helped her in the kitchen. How she shopped in the market, how she talked with the neighbors, graciously making their house a part of the neighborhood. The world came to their house to see Father; Mother went out and blessed the neighborhood with kindness and concern. Father talked. Mother listened. Father was admired. Mother was loved and trusted and needed.

  It took a while for Father to notice that Bonito was not always with him anymore, that he sometimes did not want to go. “Of course,” he said, laughing. “Court must be boring for you!” But he was a little disappointed; Bonito saw it; he was sorry for it. But he got as much pleasure from going about with his mother, for now he saw what an artist she was in her own right.

  Father spoke to rooms of people—let them take him how they would, he amused, delighted, roused, even enraged them. Mother spoke with one person at a time, and when she left, they were, however temporarily, content.

  “What did you do today?” Father asked him.

  Bonito made the mistake of answering candidly. “I went to market with Mama,” he said. “We visited with Mrs. Ferreira, the Portuguese lady? Her daughter has been making her very unhappy but Mother told her all the ways that the girl was showing good sense after all. Then we came home and Mother and Nita made the noodles for our soup, and I helped with the dusting of flour because I’m very good and I don’t get tired of sifting it. Then I sang songs to her while she did the bills. I have a very sweet voice, Papa.”

  “I know you do,” he said. But he looked puzzled. “Today I argued a very important case. I won a poor family back the land that had been unjustly taken by a bank because they would not have the patience with the poor that they showed to the wealthy. I made six rich men testify about the favors they had received from the bank, the overdrafts, the late payments that had been tolerated, and it did not even go to judgment, the bankers backed down and restored the land and forgave the back interest.”

  “Congratulations, Papa.”

  “But Bonito, you did not go to see this. You stayed home and went shopping and gossiping and sifting flour and singing songs with your mother.”

  Bonito did not grasp his point. Until he realized that Father did not grasp his own point, either. He was envious. It was that simple. Father was jealous that Bonito had chosen to spend his day with his mother.

  “I’ll go with you tomorrow, Father.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday, and the great case was today. It was today, and you missed it.”

  Bonito felt that he had let his father down. It devastated him. Yet he had been so happy all day with Mama. He cried. “I’m sorry, Papa. I’ll never do it again.”

  “No, no, you spend your days as you want.” Father picked him up and held him. “I never meant to make you cry, my Bonito, my pretty boy. Will you forgive your papa?”

  Of course he did. But Bonito did not stay home with Mother after that, not for a long while. He was devotedly with his father, and Amaro seemed happier and prouder than ever before. Mother never said anything about it, not directly. Only one day did she say, “I paid bills today, and I thought I heard you singing to me, and it made me so happy, my pretty boy.” She smiled and caressed him, but she was not hurt, only wistful and loving, and Bonito knew that Father needed to have him close at hand more than Mother did.

  Now Bonito understood his own power in the house. His attention was the prize. Where he bestowed it mattered far too much to Father, and only a little less to Mother.

  But it worked the other way as well; it hurt Bonito’s feelings a little that Mother could do without him better than Father could.

  A family filled with love, Bonito knew, and yet they still managed to hurt each other in little ways, unthinking ways.

  Only I do think about it, Bonito realized. I see what neither of my parents sees.

  It frightened him. It exhilarated him. I am the true ruler of this house. I am the only one who understands it.

  He could not say this to anyone else. But he wrote it down. Then he tore up the paper and hid it at the bottom of the kitchen garbage, under the orange rinds and meat scraps that would go out into the compost pile.

  He forgot, for that moment, that he was not actually alone. For he wore on the back of his neck the monitor of the International Fleet. A tiny transmitter that marked a child as one of the chosen ones, being observed and evaluated. The monitor connected to his neural centers. The people from Battle School saw through his eyes, heard through his ears. They read what he wrote.

  Soon after Bonito wrote his observation and tore it up, the young officer returned. “I need to speak to young Bonito. Alone.”

  Father made a bit of a fuss but then went off to work without his son. Mother busied herself in the kitchen; she was perhaps a bit noisier than usual with the pots and pans and knives and other implements, but the sound was a comfort to Bonito as he faced this man that he did not well remember having seen before.

  “Bonito,” said the officer softly. “You wrote something down yesterday.”

  Bonito was at once ashamed. “I forgot that you could see.”

  “We thought it was important that you know two things. First, you’re right. You are the true ruler of the house. But second, you are an only child, so you had no way of knowing that in any healthy family, the children are the true rulers.”

  “Fathers rule,” said Bonito, “and mothers are in charge when they’re not home.”

  “That describes the outward functioning of your home,” said the young officer. “But you understand that all they do is meant for you—even your father’s vast ambition is about achieving greatness in his son’s eyes. He doesn’t know this about himself. But you know it about him.”

  Bonito nodded.

  “Children rule in every home, but not in the ways they might wish. Good parents try to help their children, but not always to please them, because sometimes what a child needs is not what gives him pleasure. Cruel parents are jealous of their children’s power and rebel against it, using them selfishly, hurting them. Your parents are not cruel.”

  “I know that.” Was the man stupid?

  “Then I’ve told you everything I came to say.”

  “Not yet,” said Bonito.

  “Oh?”

  “Why is it that way?”

  The young officer looked pleased. Bonito thought: Do I also rule him?

  “The human race preserved itself,” said the young officer, “by evolving this hunger in parents for the devotion of their children. Without it, they starve. Nothing pleases them more than their child’s smile or laughter. Nothing makes them more anxious than a child’s frantic cry. Childless people often do not know what they’re starving for. Parents whose children have grown, though, they know what they’re missing.”

  Bonito nodded. “When you take me away to Battle School, my parents will be very hungry.”

  “If we take you,” the young officer said gently.

  Bonito smiled. “You must leave me here,” he said. “My family needs me.”

  “You may rule in this house, Bonito, but you do not rule the International Fleet. Your smile won’t tell me what to do. But when the time comes, the choice will be yours.”

  “Then I choose not to go.”

  “When the time comes,” the officer repeated. Then he left.

  Bonito understood that they would be judging him, and what he did with the information the young officer had told him would be an important part of that judgment. In Battle School, they trained children to become military leaders. That meant that it would be important to see what Bonito did with the influence he had discovered that he had with his parents.

  Can I help them both to be happy?

  What does it mean to be happy?

  Mother helps both me and Father, doing things for us all the time. Is that what makes her happy? Or does she do it in hopes of our doing things in return that would make her happy? Father loves to talk about his dreams for Spain. Does that mean he needs to actually achieve them in order to be happy? Or does his happiness come from having a cause to argue for? Does it matter that it’s a lost cause, or does that make Father even happier as its advocate? Would I please him most by adopting that cause as my own, or would he feel like I was competing with him?

  It was so confusing, to have responsibility for other people’s happiness.

  So now Bonito embarked on his first serious course of study: His parents, and what they wanted and needed in order to be happy.

  Study meant research. He couldn’t figure things out without learning more about them. He began interviewing them, informally. He’d ask them questions about their growing up, about how they met, whatever came into his mind. They both enjoyed answering his questions, though they often dodged and didn’t give him full explanations or stories. Still, the very fact that on certain subjects they became evasive was still data, it was still part of understanding them.

  But the more he learned, the less clearly he understood anything. People were too complicated. Adults did too many things that made no sense, and remembered too many stories in ways that did make sense but weren’t believable, and Bonito couldn’t figure out whether they were lying or had merely remembered them wrong. Certainly Mother and Father never told the same story in the same way—Father’s version always made him the hero, and Mother’s version always made her the suffering victim. Which should have made the stories identical, except that Mother never saw Father as her savior, and Father never made Mother all that important in the stories.

  It made Bonito wonder if they really loved each other and if not, why they ever got married.

  It was disturbing and it made him upset a lot of the time. Mother noticed that he was worried about something and tried to get him to tell it, but he knew better than to explain what he was working on. He didn’t really have the words to explain it, anyway.

  It was too much responsibility for a child, he knew that. How could he possibly make his parents happy? He couldn’t do anything about what they needed. The only thing he controlled was how he treated them. So gradually, not in despair but in resignation, he stopped trying to make their behavior and their relationship make sense, and he stopped expecting himself to be able to change anything. If his failure to help them meant the I.F. didn’t take him into space, well, that was fine with him, he didn’t want to go.

  But he still kept noticing things. He still kept asking questions and trying to find things out about them.

  Which is why he noticed a certain pattern in his father’s life. On various days of the week, but usually at least once a week, Father would go on errands or have meetings where he didn’t try to bring Bonito—where, indeed, he refused to take him. Until this research project began, Bonito had never thought anything of it—he didn’t even want to be in on everything his father did, mostly because some of his meetings could be really boring.

  But now he understood enough of his father’s business to know that Father never hid his regular work from Bonito. Oh, of course he met with clients alone—it would disturb them to have a child listening to everything—but those meetings weren’t hidden. There were appointments that the secretary wrote down, and Bonito sat out in the secretary’s office and wrote or drew or read until Father was done.

  These secret meeting always took place outside the office, and outside of office hours. Sometimes they consisted of a long lunch, and the secretary took Bonito home so Mother could feed him. Sometimes Father would have an evening meeting after he brought Bonito home.

  Usually, Father loved to tell about whatever he had done and especially what he had said that made someone else angry or put him in his place or made people laugh. But about these secret meetings, he was never talkative. He’d dismiss them as boring, pointless, tedious, he hated to go.

  Yet Father never seemed as though he hated to go before the meeting. He was almost eager to go—not in some obvious way, but in the way he watched the clock surreptitiously and then made some excuse and left briskly.