Coming out to Ma was faster and easier than I ever imagined it would be. I don’t know how much Pasiones de tu Corazón had to do with that, but I think it may have made it a little easier for Ma to understand how I felt. And seeing someone fall in love with another man on-screen somehow made me feel less alone.

“Why is he putting all that money into the bag?” Sophie asks from behind the couch.

“Sophie, go to your room!” Ma says without taking her eyes off the TV.

Sophie turns around reluctantly, but she leaves her bedroom door open. She knows she’s not supposed to watch Pasiones—Ma says it’s too grown-up for her—but she finds ways to keep up to speed with the story without us realizing.

We’re holding our breath, watching as the guy on the screen swings the bag of money across his chest, when something happens. There’s a knock on the door. Our door.

Ma and I turn to look at each other. Her expression quickly shifts from shock to fear. No one ever comes knocking at this time.

Pa walks out of his room. He’s wearing his pajamas, and he looks just as scared as we feel. I know we’re all thinking the same thing. We’re imagining ICE agents out in the hallway, here to take my dad away.

Another knock comes, more desperate than the first.

My whole body feels paralyzed. I don’t move. I can’t even breathe. I don’t know how Pa finds the strength to move his legs, one small step at a time, toward the door. Slowly, he leans forward to look through the peephole.

He sighs so loudly that the sound of his lungs deflating fills the entire apartment. “Es la Señora Solís,” he says, undoing the latch.

He opens the door, and sure enough, Mrs. Solís, the neighbor from down the hall, is standing there. “Ernesto,” she says. She’s wearing a white nightgown and has rollers in her hair. “Qué bueno que sigues despierto. Mi tele no sirve, y estoy tratando de ver Pasiones.”

She always comes to my dad whenever one of her electronics isn’t working—her microwave, her iron, her stove. Tonight, it’s her TV, and she needs it to work so she can watch the telenovela.

Pa nods once. “Let me take a look,” he says. “In the meantime, why don’t you watch here?”