I can’t read your mind.

Your Tita Nene was very disappointed in you.

Who the fuck is she?

Your Tita Nene? Don’t try telling me you don’t know your Tita Nene, Tomas.

She’s Veronica’s mom, I tell him.

He looks at me, annoyed. Shut up, Junior.

He seems in no mood for joking so I back off. He turns to Mom. Your relative gets all excited real easy doesn’t she? he says.

I’m not joking, Tomas.

I didn’t do anything.

She turns towards the pool and the light off the house’s white stucco wall illuminates her face, and she seems to hold her words, then turns back to him. Let me see the gun.

What?

Let me see the gun.

He shrugs as if he does not care, though it is obvious he does. He turns to me. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Do you, Junior?

I ignore him.

He seems to believe she will drop this and walk inside, but she does not move. She scratches her elbow the way she does when nervous, though now she is only angry.

How could you do this to me? Her eyes are wide and almost watery.

Tomas shifts uncertainly. Sorry, he says.

She looks away. Her jaw almost trembling.

He leans forward, as though about to put a hand on her shoulder—something he used to do when he was younger. He does not, though.

How humiliating, our mother says. She keeps her eyes away from his. I can’t believe you would do this to me.

He glances at me, panicked for help, but finding nothing, he turns back to her again.

Jesus, Mom, he says. I said I’m sorry.

IV

A week later we get the first phone call. At least it is the first phone call I know of. If the yoga mom has talked to our mother before, I have not heard about it. I tell the woman my mother is not home, which is true, and say I will tell her she called. I do not, and hope maybe the yoga mom will drop it, but in the evening Tomas answers the phone, and even listening from the other room, I can tell he is speaking to her, and he sounds impatient and annoyed and angry. He returns to the kitchen.

Jesus, he says.

What?

That bitch is pissed at Mom.

It seems that the yoga mom wants to take her Land Cruiser in to get repaired. She already took it to the dealer and got an estimate. My brother looks too worked up to sit down. He is so mad at her he has forgotten to be nasty to me.

It was just a little scratch, I say. Her truck was so big the Tercel could barely do any damage.

She said it was going to be eight hundred dollars.

That’s bullshit, I say.

He shakes his head.