That’s what the Verdes have always done—they go after kids like Jorge, who feel a little lost, who aren’t sure where they fit in. Everyone says that once you get in with them, you can’t get out, but my dad didn’t believe that. The second he realized Jorge was selling drugs and going out at night to do who-knows-what, he decided to put a stop to it. This happened before Sophie was even born. I must’ve been only five or six, but I remember how angry Jorge was at first, all the ways he tried to tell my dad to mind his own business. I also remember how Uncle Jorge started looking healthier all of a sudden, how he started coming over after dinner every night and sat down at the table to do his schoolwork, with my dad right next to him.

For a while, we were all scared—we had to look over our shoulders for months before we were certain the Verdes weren’t gonna come after us. We’ve never really understood why they let Jorge go. I think it might’ve had something to do with my dad, because if they knew who he was, and all the ways he’d helped people out, they may have chosen to give him and Jorge a chance to walk away unharmed.

Now, as the taxi pulls over in front of Jorge’s building, it’s hard to believe any of that ever happened. After those difficult years, he managed to finish high school. With a bit of help from my dad, he got into Hunter College, where he met Amy. Now they’re married, and have a baby daughter, and they live here, in a brownstone building in the West Village.

We get out of the cab, and he helps us carry our bags up the front steps of the building and to the second floor. The door to his apartment opens as we’re approaching it, and Amy appears, wearing a flowery summer dress.

“How did everything go?” she asks. She has a sweet voice and long, reddish-brown hair. Even after all this time, I have a hard time understanding what she and Jorge saw in each other in the first place. They could not be any more different. She grew up in Brooklyn and has always had a soft spot for antiques, and the ballet, and stuff that Jorge couldn’t care less about. Maybe what brought them together was just the fact that he needed a little more order in his life, and she needed a little less.

“All right,” I answer, but I quickly realize she wasn’t talking to me. She’s looking at Jorge, who’s coming behind Sophie and me.

“Good,” he says, grunting a little as he carries the heavy bags the last bit of the way. “Locked up their place, and we got all the stuff they need right here.”