Caridad was the first to hear the shrill scream. —Wake up! Caridad yelled, wake up! Santo jumped out of his bed. And ran to find Don Chan running out with buckets of water. The garden ablaze, as if the sun had dropped and was rolling in their direction. —They are trying to starve us to death, Santo told his mother as they ran after Don Chan. He had heard that the armed forces, under the present leadership of Reid Cabral, were on a mission to sabotage the lives of Bosch’s supporters. —I saw him, Miraluz said about the man who scarred her arm with his knife as a warning. —His skin was like an alligator.

Don Chan walked toward the fire. Toward the people of Los Llanos, batting away the flames with damp palm leaves up and above the burning plants, to save the older trees that would take years to grow again. The children pulled from the earth the smaller plants that had not been hurt. The pomegranates had fallen, cracked open, exposing their bloody flesh. Don Chan took off his shirt and gathered mangoes, sour oranges, cherries, piling them up away from the fire and then running back again to salvage some more. He ordered the people to gather, to pluck, to harvest the last of their garden.

Weeks later, a car drove into Los Llanos with three men: a priest, a decorated military general, and a pale-faced man in a suit, ready to talk business. They were pointing to the acres of land. They were shaking hands.

—Don’t look at me, he said to the foreigners and realized that, even when they looked over at his small wooden home, they didn’t see it or him. They saw the well-watered soil, the acres and acres of fields that were suitable for cultivating cane and coffee to export abroad.

—Get off my land. Get out of my house, Don Chan said from his doorway. They were too far away to hear him. He recalled the fear he had felt during Trujillo’s regime, when the thought of conspiring against the government was enough to get Don Chan killed.

Nueva York—Spofford

1996

Esperanza walked into the apartment loaded with bags of groceries. She had a full day. She was off duty for twenty-four hours before she had to return to Mr. Hernández’s house. In that time, she planned to visit Bobby at Spofford. She dreaded taking that bus ride: all those sad-looking people on that bus going to that horrible place. If she’d beat him like she was beat by her parents, they would in turn put her in jail. But if the correctional officers whipped her Bobby, they called it “behavior management.” Why was the law messing with things parents should be able to fix? She knew her child. He was no criminal.

—Hey, Viejo, you okay? Esperanza yelled over to Don Chan, napping in the living room, on the recliner. She placed the bags on the kitchen table. She peeled off her coat and turned on the overhead lights.