Bobby was on his best behavior, fetching all the things his mother demanded. She didn‘t have to beg Bobby to stay off the streets. He had already become afraid of the streets that took his father.

—I‘ll see you when I get back from school, Mami, Bobby said.

—It‘s test week, I have to go to class.

On many days, Bobby tried to break away from her grasp without making her cry. He covered her with a blanket, making sure the television was on for her to watch, placing a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin at her feet, just in case.

—You‘re so skinny, Bobby, she said, grabbing his arm. —How you gonna take care of us if you don‘t start eating well? Esperanza held on to his bony hands.

Esperanza couldn‘t bear leaving the house to take care of people, when she desperately wanted to be taken care of. The neighbors brought over Tupperware filled with food she wouldn‘t eat. They offered to help her around the house if she needed something, but in ten years she had never made such an offer to anyone. She was always too busy, and the thought of owing someone more than she already did was too much. No thank you, she said to them, pretending to be fine.

Throughout the day, she left the television on. It made her feel less alone. She searched the television for something to tell her about her fate. How should she be acting? Her children fatherless. Esperanza a widow and a single mother. Dallas didn‘t own a black dress, or white satin ribbons for her hair. She wondered what all those grieving people on television were doing while the commercials were on. She watched the Dallas reruns and lost herself to their world.

If I had just stayed out of his life, Pamela Ewing said before Esperanza could turn off the TV. No, not Bobby; Esperanza reached out to the television. She had seen the episode before. Two, maybe three times. Bobby Ewing had died. She had forgotten that? If I hadn‘t come here…He wouldn‘t have died. Pamela cried and banged against the silk pillows on her bed. Esperanza had always loved the dress Pamela was wearing in that episode. He was trying to save me, Pamela cried, as her family tried to console her. Oh my poor Bobby, he‘s dead, he‘s dead. And it was my fault.—Oh no, Pamela, it‘s not your fault, Esperanza told her and came up close to the television.

What if she couldn‘t pay the rent? What if they were thrown out into the streets? If she worked more hours, she would never see her children. They would grow up delinquents, hating her, like all those children who hated their mamàs on those talk shows. She sobbed and threw dishes against the wall and then sat at the kitchen table with the stillness of someone who had been defeated.

Without the TV, the silence drove her mad. The absence of Santo‘s whistling was about to drive her over the edge. The tail of the whistle was trapped in her ear, an incomplete melody.