“And who look after María Inés? Ma, she got to work, now she saying if I don’t go to school I got to get a job.”

“I’ll make some calls, Julia, and see what kind of help I can find. In the meantime, I want you to come to our practice on Thursday. Bring María Inés. Bring Sammy and Betto: they can watch María Inés in the gym with us while you work out. Will you do that?”

Her eyes were dark pools in the half-light. She clutched my hand tightly and finally mumbled, “Maybe.”

“And before you go out with another boy, you need to learn something about your body, about how you get pregnant, and what you can do to keep from getting pregnant. You and I will talk about that, too. Are you still seeing María Inés’s—father?” I stumbled on the word—the person who got her pregnant wasn’t acting like a father to the baby.

“Sometimes. Just to say, ‘Hi, look, this is your baby.’ I don’t let him do nothing to me, if that’s what you mean. One baby is enough for me.”

“He doesn’t help support María Inés?”

“He got two more children spread around this neighborhood,” she cried. “And he don’t have no job. I ast him and ast him, and he never do nothing, now he cross the street if he see me coming.”

“So is it this Freddy whom you and Josie were mentioning yesterday?”

She nodded again, her silky hair ruffling the nylon pillowcase.

“Who is he?”

“Just a guy. I met him at church, that’s all.”

I wondered if Pastor Andrés, with his stern lectures on sex, ever talked to Freddy about scattering children he couldn’t support around the South Side, but when I put it into words Julia turned away from me. I realized I wasn’t just making her uncomfortable, I was getting pretty far a field from Josie’s disappearance.

“So when Billy stayed here on Friday and Saturday night, did he and Josie have sex together?”

“No,” she said dully. “He said, her and me should sleep together, he didn’t want temptation in their path. He quoted a bunch of Bible verses. It was almost as bad as Pastor Andrés being in the room with me.”

I couldn’t quite stifle a laugh, but I could picture the little room, heavy with religion and hormones. A suffocating combination. “Do you think your sister ran away with Billy?”