—I can stay with you, Esperanza said, although she didn’t want to.

—No, it’s fine. Mrs. Hernández stared out the same window her husband loved to look out from every day for hours on end.

—What do you think he saw when he looked out the window? Mrs. Hernández said.

—The same things we see, I guess. The pigeons, the people walking, the cars honking, the other windows in apartments. Stuff like that.

—I never asked him, you know? It’s funny how we never ask people when they’re around, and then when they’re gone, all these questions surface.

—Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you?

—No, mija. You’ve done enough.

—I’ll leave you my number in case of anything. And make sure you eat something. No point in making yourself sick.

Esperanza needed to take a walk and make her way home to care for Consuelo.

—I’m fine, Mrs. Hernández said, lighting another cigarette. My old friend and me are being reacquainted. It had been years since I lit up one of these. But I always kept a pack in the fridge, waiting. It helped to quit knowing I had a pack nearby whenever I needed it.

—Call me, Esperanza said, as she walked away from her. It was the last time Esperanza ever saw Mrs. Hernández, who was looking out the window, on the wooden chair. It was the last visit Esperanza made to Van Cortlandt. She had assumed she’d be invited to the funeral, but Mrs. Hernández never called.

Esperanza returned home. She opened the children’s bedroom and found Bobby asleep on the bed with Consuelo next to him bundled tightly in a blanket. Don Chan was on his bed, the sheets soaked in tears. Esperanza pulled a blanket over Don Chan, and for the first time, he didn’t resist her. —I want to go home, he said and grabbed her hand and wept for the unrequited dreams of all those he loved. She waited until he fell asleep and then retired to her room. The tin box was on her bed, waiting for her. Someone had moved it from the dresser. Inside it, she found a new wad of dollar bills, 150 dollars. It would never repair what had broken inside her. All those years she worked for her children, thinking that one day they would take care of her; instead they stole from her.

She held Santo’s photo on her altar and kissed it. She looked at the boxes filled with the outgrown clothing of her children, Santo’s belongings; all the things that waited to be sent to D.R. All the memories that crowded her home, that waited, that never changed; all the things that she accumulated to fill the void, the emptiness, to fill the absence.

—Está bien, Viejo, I’ll take you home.

8

Boarding NYC—Sto. Dgo.

1999

The Colón family arrived in Dominican Republic when suddenly the new president had decided to push the hour forward. What better way to show his power than to darken the mornings and lengthen the nights? So what if the farmers who relied on the hens, who cockadoodled with the rise of the sun, were running late; and if children walked to school in the dark, in the early mornings. Everything was off the clock; flowers were late blooming, the cows were not milking, women’s periods didn’t come, creating a panic of pregnancy and a variety of screams that competed with the traffic jams on city corners.