Josie yelled back, “You better hope Pastor Andrés don’t come round—he totally fix that truck for you like he did before.”

The youths shouted something else at her. When it looked as though she was going to stay to fight, I pushed her up the front walk. The noise followed us up the stairs to the second floor; even though the Dorrados lived in the back of the building, I could still feel the bass rocketing inside my stomach as Josie unlocked her front door.

The door led directly into a living room. A girl was sitting on the couch, dressed only in a baby-doll T-shirt and underpants. She was watching television with a ferocious intensity, her hand moving from an open chip bag in her lap to her mouth. An infant lay next to her on the plastic-coated cushion, staring vacantly at the ceiling. The only decorations in the room were a large, plain cross on one wall and a picture of Jesus blessing some children.

“Julia! Coach is here to see Ma. Put some clothes on,” Josie cried. “What you thinking, sitting around naked in the middle of the afternoon?”

When her sister didn’t move, Josie walked over and yanked the potato chip bag from her lap. “Get up. Get out of this dreamworld and into the daylight. Is Ma home?”

Julia hunched over, so that her face was only a yard from the screen, where a woman in red was leaving a hospital room; a man accosted her. The conversation, in Spanish, had something to do with the woman in the room behind them.

Josie stood between the set and her sister. “You can see Mujer again tomorrow, and the day after and the day after that. Now, go put on your clothes. Is Ma home?”

Julia got sullenly to her feet. “She’s in the kitchen. Mixing María Inés’s formula. Take María Inés out with you while I put on my jeans.”

“I gotta meet April. We have a science project together, so don’t expect me to stay home looking after your own baby,” Josie warned, scooping up the infant. “Sorry, Coach,” she added over her shoulder to me. “Julia lives inside that telenovela. She even named the baby for one of the people in it.”

I followed her through a doorway into a room that doubled as a dining and bedroom: bed linens were folded neatly at one end of an old wood table; plates and silver were stacked at the other. Two air mattresses lay under the table; next to them, a box held Power Rangers and other action toys that must have belonged to Josie’s brothers.

Julia shoved her way past Josie into a small room on our left. Twin beds were neatly made. The linens were startling, bright replicas of the Stars-and-Stripes. I hadn’t realized patriotism was so important to the Dorrados.