Esperanza pulled out the bags and looked at the names she had painstakingly written in permanent marker. The bags held a mix of household items—used pots, silverware, sheets, outgrown and outdated clothes. Some bags were filled with sample lipsticks she had gotten at the stores, and medicines, unconsumed before their expiration date, by the clients she took care of.

—Ay, gracias, prima, one said after the other, pulling out the treasures, checking to see if the cousin or sister received something better.

—You always send Minerva jeans. Why not me? Soraida complained.

—My mother makes this bra in la Zona Franca. How much you paid for this, eh?

—And what about the watch I wrote you for? You never sent me that watch.

—I could really use some sneakers, prima. These have holes in them.

Esperanza didn’t hear the thank-yous. Only the complaining. The sweat dripped off her body. The silk shirt she wore was stained under the armpits and all along her back. Her mascara was running again. Her lipstick bled onto her teeth.

—Dallas, get me a napkin, Esperanza demanded.

—No more napkins, Pura said.

—So get money from my purse and buy some.

Esperanza was frustrated. She was staying in Dominican Republic for a few days and they couldn’t even buy her napkins, just in case she needed them.

—But we buy them as we need them, Pura said.

—Sí, tía, it’s not like Nueva York here, one prima said. —Even the toilet paper is expensive.

—You’ll never understand how hard it is in New York, Esperanza said, pulling out bags of used clothing. —They’re like new. You know I wouldn’t give anything that wasn’t in good condition.

But they wouldn’t know because Esperanza had never made the trip back. And when they called her to ask her for money or supplies, she sent things with friends.

She sat among the bags, her family crowded over them, and suddenly Esperanza wasn’t feeling so well.

—Did you bring pictures of your house in New York City? one asked.

—No, I didn’t.

—We don’t have a house, we have an apartment. Dallas handed over the napkins to Esperanza.

Esperanza sneered at her. They didn’t need to know.

—Everyone has an apartment in New York, Esperanza defended herself.

—I heard Nueva York’s dangerous. Is that true, prima?

—How did they kill Santo again?

—And wasn’t your son in jail? Is he out now?

Esperanza didn’t answer. She methodically dug into the bag and called out the women’s names who would then distribute the clothes to their husbands and children.

Dallas noticed her mother slowing down. She hadn’t realized how big her family was, how much they counted on her mother.

—Leave her alone, Dallas said.

—But why is she crying?

Pura pulled Esperanza out of the crowd and took her to the bedroom, where Esperanza shed more tears.

Dallas looked at all of them in disgust. With Consuelo on her hip, the women respected her. She placed Consuelo at her feet and dug in her mother’s bags and called out the foreign names that her mother knew so well. She might have been away from D.R., but Esperanza had kept up with every child born, every person married. Dallas grabbed the bags, some bigger, others smaller, and yelled the names. —Yrene, Patricia, Julia, Blanca, Aurelia. And when the name was called, there would be a gasp, or a jump, as if they had won a prize. By the time Esperanza returned, Dallas was done. The suitcases were collapsed into each other like Russian dolls for the return trip.