—Abuelo…I think I should go to bed, it’s late.

—Late? We can’t sleep. Because that’s when they get us.

—No disrespect, Abuelo, but you’re confused. We’re in New York. I’m your grandson, Bobby. Look at me, Abuelo. No one is after us.

Don Chan didn’t want to look at him. If this was Bobby, then where was Santo?

Bobby let the silence hang for a while.

—You know, Abuelo, I hope you don’t go dying anytime soon, so you can see what my plans are. Bobby nearly burst out laughing, because the idea of being with Hush brought him so much joy. He couldn’t believe how corny and ridiculous he must’ve sounded, but he felt it deep inside him, like warm bathwater on his skin.

—What’s so funny? Don Chan asked. He was trying to have a serious conversation with him.

—Nothing, Abuelo. I’m mad tired. I’m going to bed. He left Don Chan alone in the dark.

Esperanza was tired. She was tired of getting up every morning and taking the train crowded with people. She was tired of spilling out of the train and into the streets where more hurried people rushed to their jobs, classes. People stomping all over her, too busy looking at their watches, clutching their newspapers, stomping their rubber soles onto the pavement and never once did they look left or right, just forward. She was tired of thinking about her next paycheck and seeing it disappear into her bills. Had she already paid for the electricity last month or was it the phone bill? Was she supposed to call the doctor for Don Chan’s appointment, or was it Hush’s appointment? She was tired. And what for? Now the agency required her to travel downtown and take a seminar to prevent injuries in health aides while lifting and working with disabled patients. Did her work ever end?

Esperanza read the ads over people’s heads as she rode the train. Ads for lawsuits, for doctors for bunions, for condoms. She tried not to make eye contact. And when she did, the disgruntled and tired faces on people belonging to the business suits, the young, anxious faces heading to school with their backpacks clutched in between their legs, men and women heading to work made her more tired. Many of them struggling to keep their own eyes open in the morning and their heads falling over onto the stranger’s shoulder next to them.

Then she noticed a tall white man getting on the train, holding his paper.

Esperanza blinked hard, lifting her eyebrows, leaning forward to get a better look. She knew that man. Yes, she did know him after watching him for so many years.

It was the haircut. The beady eyes. The can’t-do-
no-wrong Bobby Ewing.

She tugged at the woman next to her, reading the Bible.

Bobby Ewing was on the train! In her train! Going in her direction!

—This is a sign, Esperanza said to the churchgoing, hat-wearing lady.

—Who’s Bobby?

—He’s like the richest man in Texas! Esperanza said. No one seemed to care or notice. She had to speak to him. It was no coincidence that it was happening to her at that moment. She went into her purse to look for a photograph of Bobby and Dallas to show him how he was partly responsible for everything that had happened in her life. That he owed something to her after she had made such a long trip.