That was where her mind was. She had spent the summer falling in love with her baby, Lucas, but now it was August, back to work to pay the mortgage.

As the meetings droned on, the young teacher consoled herself that school was just two minutes away from home in State College, Pa. The baby was with his father, Alejandro Mendez Vargas, a tender spirit who was so good with Lucas that her mother teasingly called him "Mr. Mom."

It would be OK.

But then, as Lisa was getting out supplies for her Spanish classroom, her return to daily routine suddenly crumbled.

Someone was running up to her, screaming. Her neighbor's daughter?

Nothing made sense. Lisa heard the girl say Lucas was not breathing. An ambulance had taken him to the hospital.

Lisa started to cry and ran down the hall. She raced home to get her husband - but why was Alejandro talking to the police?

At the hospital, the doctors asked if Lucas had been in an accident. Did someone shake him? More stern-faced police arrived. And then her baby was being helicoptered to a bigger hospital 80 miles away.

Six days later, he was dead.

And the doctors and police believed that one of his parents had killed him.

A romance abroad

Lucas seemed like such a healthy baby.

He had chubby, dimpled cheeks, a soft hint of a smile. He had blue eyes from his mother and a touch of gold in his skin from his father, a native of Costa Rica.

That's where Lisa and Alejandro had fallen in love.

Lisa, a junior-high Spanish teacher in State College, was chaperoning a group of students on a 10-day "eco-tour" of the Central American nation. Alejandro was their guide.

They didn't hit it off so well at first.

The burly, smiling guide greeted the young teacher warmly - too warmly, she thought. Reserved by nature, the tall, slender woman was unsure of his intentions and gave him a frosty greeting in return.

Talking to his bus driver later, Alejandro rolled his eyes. Ten days with the standoffish schoolteacher.

"It's going to be a long one," he said.