Dallas was careful to sneak back into the apartment. Don Chan wasn’t napping on the recliner. She slipped into the kitchen and opened the fridge door as if she was looking for something to eat. Don Chan walked in.

—What are you doing here? he demanded, not recognizing Dallas right away.

—I live here.

—Oh, it’s you, Dallas, he said. He could hardly see a thing without his glasses.

Dallas wanted to check her lips in the mirror to see if someone would be able to tell the difference she felt.

—Where were you?

—In the bedroom, Abuelo.

—But I looked and you weren’t there.

—Abuelo, are you sure you’re feeling all right? You look tired. She took his arm and walked him to the recliner chair that he didn’t like to sit in because it was difficult for him to get out of it.

—Sí, sí, I feel fine. But I looked in your bedroom and you weren’t there.

—C’mon, Abuelo, tell me the year. Dallas giggled to herself thinking about Hush, the cola taste. Her throat hurt from holding in all her emotions.

Esperanza had not caught on that Don Chan’s memory lapses had gotten worse, because she was never home.

—Abuelo? Dallas pulled at his sleeve. She knew his time was coming up. They all knew. —Abuelo, say something, Dallas insisted.

Don Chan looked bewildered. He had forgotten something again. Caridad would be mad at him. She always looked at him with disappointment.

—Caridad, why are you mad at me?

Dallas didn’t respond. The way he said the name Caridad gave her goose bumps.

—Come sit on my lap, he said, reaching out to Dallas.

Dallas rested on his lap. If she put all her weight on him, she’d break his leg in half. She held his hand and smelled his pine scent with a dash of cigar; cigars he only smoked on rare occasions because the sweet smell gave Esperanza migraines. Caridad had been a woman of few words. But when she talked, her words were like bullets. A now-or-never way of talking that had earned her respect. Dallas had heard stories about her from Don Chan before. Dallas stroked her grandfather’s hair and wondered what it must be like to be so old, to start forgetting the easiest things for her to remember. Like the year, her name.

—You know Graciela means nothing to me, Don Chan said.

—Graciela? Dallas was confused. It was the first time he’d mentioned her. She had heard many things about Miraluz, but Graciela?

—It’s that maldito rum that messes with my head. I won’t do it again. I promise, I’ll never take a sip of that damn rum from Ramoncito’s colmado again.

—Again? Dallas was seeing a side of Don Chan she hadn’t imagined. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would have cheated on her grandmother.

The apartment door opened.

—Get off of him, Bobby said, pulling Dallas away from Don Chan.

—Bobby, what you doing home?