On a clumsy day, Bobby dropped the pile of books on his way to the library, and as he picked them up, he noticed they were missing pages. The books were faulty. People didn’t respect public property on Quepasó Street, why would they take care of books? So he carefully inspected each book when he borrowed them. How frustrating to read passages and have pages missing like that. And when he picked up the pile to return it, he inspected the books, to find that pages were missing. Random pages had been torn out. He didn’t know how to approach Hush about it. As it was, he didn’t know how to approach Hush, because every time he looked at her, his tongue curled itself under and stuck to the roof of his mouth. So he decided to watch her while she read, when she didn’t think anyone was looking.

Hush curled up on the sofa, her belly large compared to her small frame, but it was only the size of a basketball. She read the book, and when she reached the end, she went through the pages skimming passages she liked. She didn’t always read books from beginning to end. She felt books had their own time, and if she didn’t get lost in them, they were wrong for her at that moment. But there were passages that she didn’t want to forget. When she found them, she ripped the page out, held the page in her hand, and carefully tore it in sections, putting each piece in her mouth. She chewed it slowly and swallowed. The blandness of the paper comforted the slight nausea she had been told would go away, but hadn’t.

Esperanza had complained that Hush wasn’t eating. She worried that while Hush appeared healthy and was gaining weight as the months progressed, she hadn’t eaten the food she served her. Esperanza asked Bobby and Dallas if she craved anything in particular. Did she ever complain about the meals? She wondered why her plates were left untouched and how Hush kept growing without any proper nutrition. No one else admitted to feeding her.

Should Bobby keep Hush’s secret? As it was, the family never talked about her pregnancy. They never talked about the father of the baby. They treated Hush like a guest who was visiting for an indefinite amount of time. Why did he have to tell anyone she ate paper?

—I’ll bring you books if you take the vitamins. Deal?

Hush grabbed the glass of water and took the vitamins Bobby bought her. And for a number of months, Hush continued to devour passages of books, while the Colón family fluttered around her. Don Chan spent his afternoons telling Hush about Los Llanos while he waited for Santo to come home. Esperanza watched reruns of Dallas with Hush every other day, when she was off from work, and made sure that Hush filled her in on what she missed when she worked at Mrs. Hernández’s house. Dallas tried outfits on for Hush and, without telling her she had 150 dollars stashed in her room, she debated with Hush for hours whether buying something with stolen money would bring her bad luck.