Then, she’d conspiratorially called little Zephyr closer and told her that the real reason was a secret, one she could never tell. Zephyr had promised with her whole heart, and Adriana had spilled. Her son had a sweet tooth, and Adriana used to make alfajores for him when he was a child, with coconut shavings and jam, but as a kid, he’d never been able to pronounce the word. So every time he had craved something sweet, he’d said ‘alfa’, and it had become a secret joke between mother and son as he grew older and started going by Alpha.
