Photo: JK Monument, Brasilia; Maurilio Quadros on Unsplash

“Why is he up there?” Santiago shaded his eyes against the glare.

“To be close to the angels,” A-avó said.

“Isn’t he already dead?” the boy asked softly. He didn’t want to offend his grandmother, whose age seemed close enough to dying.

“Ah,” A-avó shook her head with sorrow. “He is with Jesus now some years. But he kept many from joining Heaven too early.”

The boy’s eyes lit with curiosity. “Did he do magic, A-avó?”

“In his way,” the old woman nodded. “Magic enough to me. Your O-avô would not have lived if it weren’t for President JK bringing medicine to us who lived in the country. The malaria and the tuberculosis would have taken your O-avô. As they had taken mine.”

Santiago thought of how it would be for him to grow up without the man he loved. “Obrigado,” he bowed to the statue.

“Good boy,” A-avó smiled.

For What Pegman Saw: Brasilia, Brazil