Esperanza was waiting for Dallas at the kitchen table, holding a slip of paper, fanning herself frantically. Dallas turned back toward the door to get away. All the lights were on in the kitchen and the foyer. The rest of the apartment wore a heavy darkness that provided no escape. Esperanza made eye contact and Dallas was her captive. Esperanza pointed for her to sit down at the table. Dallas sat on the farthest chair, keeping her eyes alive, prepared for her mother’s attack.

—You’re just like your grandfather, the way you sweeten words and lie.

Dallas was immune to her mother’s accusations.

—Your poor father must be turning in his grave seeing you waste your life the way you are. I didn’t risk my life to end up in this place.

When Dallas dared to look up at the angry Esperanza, she noticed her mother looked haggard.

—Malcriada, Esperanza said, making that face with pursed lips, her eyebrows lifting, meeting her hairline. Malcriada was the word for girls who disrespected their mothers by speaking their minds. It was the word that made Dallas feel like she had committed the ultimate betrayal, as if disrespecting her one more time could get her shipped back to the campo in D.R. to live without a TV, a CD player, or new clothes.

Dallas noted all the things that hadn’t been done: the pile of laundry on the floor by the washing machine. The chicken they were having for dinner was still defrosting in the sink.

—Don’t you see? All I want is a better life for us. If we all work together, one day we can leave this place, she said to Dallas. —Your dad might not be with us, but he expects certain things from you.

Dallas wanted to put a plug in her mother’s mouth. The pitch of her voice went up high when she went off in Spanish. At least in English, she stumbled over words and couldn’t keep up with her thoughts. In Spanish, Esperanza’s voice was a drill.

—That’s why I work so hard. That’s why I expect so much from you, Dallas, because so much was sacrificed for us to have a better life. And then I come home to find this. What’s this? Esperanza yelled some more, waving the slip of paper. With her free hand, she leaned over and grabbed Dallas’s chin and squeezed it tight enough to leave an impression.

—You want me to end up like you, working for some stupid jerk who makes you stay up all night cleaning his ass? For what? Dallas said under her breath, quick enough in English so that her mother couldn’t decipher what she was saying. Dallas looked at her short nails. She had tried everything to stop biting them. But she only stopped when she bit too deep and the hangnail bled. And once it healed, she bit them again.

Dallas looked away. She counted to twenty-four in her head because that was the day of her birthday. There went her jacket. She wished that Bobby or her grandfather would walk in. Dallas didn’t know how she would get out of this one. She could say the machine at school was broken and people got notes even when they didn’t cut class. Or that when she arrived at school late, they sent notes home because the computers didn’t mark the difference between being late or absent.