Josie slapped her sister; Julia started pulling her hair. I put the baby down and yanked the sisters apart. They glared at each other, but when I let them go, they didn’t lunge for each other. I picked the baby up again and sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Billy’s family, they were rude to Pastor Andrés,” Josie added. “Billy, he really cares about this neighborhood, do people have jobs, do they have enough to eat, like that, and his family, they just want to exploit us.”

Billy had definitely been preaching to his little wetback, and she was an attentive student. The baby grabbed at my earrings. I unclutched her tiny fist and pulled out my car keys for her to play with. She threw them on the floor with an excited crow of laughter.

“Who’s Freddy?” I asked.

The sisters looked at each other, but Julia said, “Just a guy who goes to Mt. Ararat, it’s a small church, we all been knowing each other since we was little.”

“Since we were little,” Josie corrected.

“You want to talk Anglo, be my guest. Me, I’m just a teenage mom, I don’t have to know anything.”

“Your mom and your aunt are such bad liars. I know, that makes you cry to hear it, but it’s true,” I spoke to the baby and blew bubbles on her stomach. “Now, who is Freddy really?”

“He’s really just a guy who goes to Mount Ararat.” Julia stared at me defiantly. “You ask Pastor Andrés, he’ll tell you.”

I sighed. “Okay, maybe, maybe. There’s something about him you don’t want me to know, though. It wouldn’t be his DNA, would it?”

“His what?” Julia said.

“DNA,” Josie said. “We covered that in biology, which you’d know if you ever went to school, it’s like how people identify—oh.” She looked at me. “Like you think he’s María Inés’s father or something.”

“Or something,” I said.

Julia spoke through clenched teeth. “He’s just a guy at church, I hardly know him except to talk at church.”

“But this casual acquaintance told you he heard old Mr. Bysen call the church and threaten the pastor with deportation?”

“It—he thought we should know,” Julia stammered.