He bent down to fetch Dallas‘s kiss, feeling a sudden pang of loss for his wife.

—Don Chan, you‘ll sleep in Dallas‘s room, and Dallas will be sharing a room with Bobby.

—I don‘t want to share with Bobby!

Bobby pulled Dallas‘s hair. Dallas shoved Bobby.

—Mami, Bobby yelled. —Tell her to leave me alone.

—Have some respect for your grandfather.

Santo rubbed his hand on his belt. They quickly composed themselves, stepping away from each other.

—You hungry? Santo asked, nudging Esperanza away so he could be alone with his father.

—Am I gonna have to change my name too? Don Chan joked.

But he wasn‘t joking. What did they expect of him? He was too old to change anything. His name was Chan Lee Colón de Juan Dolio. He wasn‘t about to change his name.

—Dallas reminds me of alas, Esperanza said in her defense. —I called her that because I want her to fly.

—Fly where?

Don Chan regretted asking. He didn‘t want to know what Esperanza had up her sleeve. And the way she flitted about the room like a butterfly made him overly anxious. No, a butterfly was too beautiful. Esperanza was nothing like Las Mariposas, synonymous with the Mirabal sisters. Esperanza wouldn‘t have risked her life to save her country from Trujillo. No, no, Esperanza was more like a moth. Attracted to the lightbulb, plain and pesty.

—Fly in life. That‘s what all mothers want for their children.

Dallas did remind him of something. Don Chan placed his finger on his top lip. And in the same way he remembered certain dreams, or different moments in his life, he remembered the man in the cowboy hat inside la Loca‘s television, the first television in Los Llanos. Every Monday and Thursday night, the neighbors gathered around la Loca‘s TV.

—Dallas. Sí, sí. It‘s the novela with the cowboys.

Don Chan clapped when he made the connection. Ever since Doña Caridad‘s departure, he was forgetting many things. —Sí, sí, it was the only time you gave my son peace, when you went off to watch that show, Don Chan said, patting Santo on the back.

—And the next thing you knew, every woman in Los Llanos had the same haircut, Santo said and started to hum the Dallas theme song and wave his hands in the air playing conductor.

—You‘re exaggerating, Esperanza said, defending herself. —What‘s wrong with wanting things to change?

—Did you ever! Santo exclaimed.

—What does that mean? Esperanza tried to forget the arguments they‘d had back in Los Llanos. On the nights she watched the show Dallas, she retired home to complain of the low ceilings she had to live under and the lopsided holes in the walls they called windows.

—Santo, why do you always hunch over like that? she‘d say and go toward him to fix his shirt collar. She became annoyed by how shabby he looked in his loose guayaberas. She wanted him to tuck in his shirts. She patted pomade on her hands and pushed his hair away from his face to mimic Bobby Ewing‘s.