On the first day, the day of the crash, he focused on making sure that she was alive, breathing, heart beating, and that she would stay that way. She was in surgery for hours and no one could tell him anything but that she was in critical condition. He didn't think about anything or anyone else, just Diana and the possibility that she might die. And he prayed.

On the second day, when she was still in recovery, when she had already slipped into a coma and they still could not tell him if she would survive the day, he remembered to call her grandmother. He had never had a reason to call her before, had only spoken to her a handful of times when he and Diana had first gotten together and he had answered her phone to find la abuela on the line. He didn't even have her phone number, had had to have his secretary find it for him. Then he called, and wished he hadn't.

He told her what had happened. He apologized for waiting so long to get in touch with her and offered to bring her out to Mexico City to be with her granddaughter. He expressed his grief and concern. And he found out that Do�a Marta Mart�nez de Rodr�guez was a cold woman, unforgiving and heartless.

She told him that she would not be going to Mexico City to see Diana. She told him that Diana was no longer part of her family, had not been since she had taken up with him and decided to live like a cualquiera, like a corriente. She told him, in less-than-flattering terms, what she thought of Diana's relationship with him, of how long it had been since there had been any contact between them and that she would prefer it continue that way. She finished by letting him know that she considered the accident Diana's castigo de Dios for living in sin. She asked that he not bother her with news about esa mujer again. And then she hung up without a goodbye.

Unable to reconcile the conversation he had just had with the very real possibility that Diana might not survive, he tried to contact her sister Catalina. Diana had keep pictures of Catalina all over her apartment, when she still had an apartment to decorate. These days she carried a small photo album in her traveling case, filled with pictures of her family that she would bring out every once in a while and look at between airports and hotels. She had spoken of her sister in glowing terms, he remembered… though she hadn't spoken of her at all recently. And that, coupled with the very disturbing conversation he had just had with Do�a Marta, gave him a bad feeling.

Hours later, dozens of messages later, he was still unable to contact Catalina. He had the suspicion that Do�a Marta had intervened and Catalina wasn't answering the phone to avoid talking to him and wasn't returning his messages because she didn't want to anger her abuela. He could not believe that they would do that, just abandon Diana at a time like this… but he hadn't even known that they were estranged… hadn't known that they weren't speaking, that her abuela didn't approve of their relationship… hadn't known that he was costing her more than time with her friends and her career and her love of Houston.

And so, at the end of the second day he realized that no one would be coming by to worry about Diana. And no one else would mourn with him if she didn't survive. On the third day Alicia Alvarado showed up.

He had sat in that chair next to Diana's bed for hours , refusing to move, refusing to leave. Nurses came in and out of the room, trying their best to make a little noise as possible, trying not to disturb him. And he ignored all of them. Except the doctors, the doctors he grilled without mercy about her condition and her recovery. But other than that, he held her undamaged hand and looked at her face, hoping to see her open her eyes.

He heard the door open and expected to see one of the nurses on duty come into the room and check her vitals. When no nurse approached the bed after a few moments, he forgot all about the door. He never looked away from Diana's face. Until he heard her voice.

"How is she?" The question was whispered, soft and tremulous, almost too low to hear. But in that silent room where the only noise was the beeping of the heart monitor, Armando heard it clearly.

Standing in the doorway was a young woman, maybe 18 or 19 years old. She was petite, with long dark hair and dark eyes, dressed in traveling clothes and towing an overnight bag in one hand. She was looking at Diana, an unreadable expression on her face. Something about her face reminded him of Diana, and he was struck by the similarity. From a lifetime of reading other people he knew, just knew, that this woman belonged to Diana somehow. She was family.