Where you gonna get eight hundred dollars? he says. I’ll be the one who will have to pay.

No, Tomas.

And you don’t even want to let me bargain the price down.

I told you. I won’t let you pay.

It’s not the money, he says. It’s the principle. And anyway where are you going to get the money?

I’ll find a way.

You’ll find a way.

Listen, Tomas, I don’t want you being rude again.

The next time the phone rings Tomas tries to get it out of her hand, but she will not let him. He storms out of the room and goes outside. He works the dogs in the dark for another hour and we can hear him out there, the barks and clattering cage and the sound of them hitting my brother and slamming him against the wooden fence.

After that Tomas is mad at her and does not talk to her and is even worse about not picking things up around the house. He has been nicer to us in general ever since the incident with Veronica. I think this has affected Mom. She even hoped, probably stupidly, that she could get him to work again and to study his way back into Saint Dominic’s. But in a moment that all changed.

And at school, now, I will see the yoga mom’s son, Ben, in assembly. He sits at the other side of the auditorium, right up front by the speaker, and I cannot tell if he knows anything about what his mother is doing. A couple of times he catches me looking at him, but I do not get the sense he knows I am angry. Once in the crowded hallway between periods he even says hello and I decide he cannot know anything but I feel like hurting him anyway, and have to take long walks to calm down.

We thought maybe we had heard the last of his mother, but then she comes up to Mom’s car in front of the whole school again. Ben stands there, avoiding my eyes, pretending he does not know what is happening. Maybe he believes this is grown-up business and does not involve him and me. My mother tries to get the yoga mom to hold off on the payment and the woman tells her she has already made an appointment with the dealer and if she doesn’t get the money she will call the authorities and tell them our mother does not have insurance. I really want to say something to this woman, but for some reason I do not. Within a week, Mom begins looking for an extra night job, though she tells me not to let my brother find out.

V