Esperanza gathered her things and hated that she had to stay overnight at her client’s. She worked twenty-four hours, then had twenty-four hours off. It was the way the agency started breaking up the schedule. The agency’s argument was, if you’re sleeping, you’re not really working. But Esperanza had still to meet an old person who slept through the night. Don Chan had few nights when he didn’t walk around the apartment, opening and closing the refrigerator and doors. It annoyed her that he was so old. If he had been younger, she could’ve sent him to work or to live back in the campo. Old Señora María Magdalena lived by herself in Los Llanos. Why couldn’t Don Chan? They could pay a relative a few dollars to watch over him. But then again, who would keep an eye on Dallas and Bobby at night? For better or for worse, Don Chan demanded a certain respect from the children.

—I’ll get an application tomorrow, Bobby said to appease her as he flipped through television channels.

—Make sure you watch over Dallas and your grandfather. I count on you, she said and kissed him. —I don’t know how I would get by without you, she said. He cringed when she rubbed her hand through his hair, when she pulled his head against her breast. She always held him a minute too long.

—Be careful, a’ight, he said, ducking under her arm to catch the score of the baseball game on TV.

—Don’t worry, son, one day I’m getting that job at the hospital. You heard that the lady upstairs graduated with a nursing degree, taking one class a semester—it took her ten years, but she now works as a nurse, and with another five years of schooling, she’s planning to work up to becoming a physician’s assistant. And in some ways, my working as a home attendant is like being a nurse.

Esperanza took the train to the last stop, and when she got out of the train, she took a bus, to arrive on a block filled with trees. She wasn’t expecting to see trees in the Bronx. She wasn’t expecting to see strollers and carts selling helado de coco. Or fruit markets or grand prewar buildings and discount stores. This couldn’t be the Bronx where all the gangs were, where she’d heard the buildings were burned down and the mice ruled.

She walked to the building address on her contract, following the directions carefully. When she arrived, she felt triumphant for not getting lost. Through the glass doors, she was surprised to see how shiny the floors of the lobby were. The new lobby doors and the stained glass that bordered the lobby windows gave her a pang of envy. She damned her super and all those families who destroyed everything in her building. For years, she had wanted to move farther north of Quepasó Street, where the Jewish families lived. Around los judíos is very decente, Esperanza thought. Unlike us Dominicans who aren’t decentes, we’re so loud, we can’t get off the streets. We want to make people deaf with all that merengue. Jewish people work hard and go to school. That’s why they don’t like when we move into their buildings, they’re afraid we’ll blast the music.