Keeping her eyes locked on me, Elena continued to address her husband. “And, of course, you told el bebé I see everything, hear everything, know everything, sí, mi amor?”

“I did,” Tomás said. He whispered to me, “She does. It’s freaky.”

“Listen, Elena—” I started.

“No, you listen, Octavio,” Elena said. “When Tomás was still laid up with his injuries and Tatina asked me to help find you, I knew then—clearly and without question—what I had to do: I had to save my godson. I had to bring you home. Standing over your coffin or, worse, having no body to bury was not an option.” She took a moment to assess if her words were reaching me. They were. “It’s always been there, Octavio. Like it is in everyone else. The darkness we fear and sometimes embrace. My need was—is for you to live. A mother’s uncompromising force of will to keep you safe. The cost—my cost—was shooting a man twice. I don’t regret it. In fact I’ve just enjoyed a wonderful meal because of it.” Smiling at me, she said, “I abhor violence. But I’m not a fool, Octavio.”

“I never thought you were, Elena,” I said. “I just—”

“Wanted to protect me because I’m a woman?” she said. Then to Tomás she said, “Tell el bebé what my superpower is, mi amor.”

Tomás rolled his eyes, then said, “She’s a woman.”

“Exactly,” Elena said. “And next time say it without rolling your eyes, pig.”

Elena brought more Mexican coffee in and filled our mugs.

“You know what I heard this afternoon at the restaurant?” Elena said as she resumed her seat next to her husband. “I heard some young white people refer to Mexicantown as ‘West Corktown.’ Can you imagine that? West Corktown! Over a hundred years of Mexicans living and working and worshipping and having babies and baptisms in southwest Detroit—and now we’re the browns of Ireland?”

“Naturally,” Tomás said with a wink to me, “you didn’t say anything to them.”

“I said to them, ‘Excuse me—but this is Mexicantown. Not “West Corktown.” It might be best if you learned the history of a place before you decide to rewrite it.’ They’re what I fear, Octavio: the nameless, faceless pallbearers come to slowly bury the still-warm body of Mexicantown.” After a moment, Elena stood and declared she was tired and “slightly tipsy” and was going to bed. At the foot of the staircase, she said, “God forgive me, but I pray for the death of the pallbearers.”

She ascended the staircase like a noir film queen who’d had her evening’s fill of men, money and champagne.

“When she’s like this, I got maybe a ten-minute window, jefe,” Tomás said.

I took his one-ton brick of a hint and left.

The invitation came in the form of a postcard.