That day was a Tuesday, a workday, and she watched bankers and shop owners wander through the plaza, watched the society women with their fancy prams and stockinged children, their nannies trailing behind. She knew her children looked feral in comparison—dirty and darker and poor. But she didn’t care. Bolero, mambo, son: she could dance if she wanted. Through the alleys, between market vendors, in the parks, at every stoplight. As she used to do with Daniel before the children. At the huge church that anchored the plaza, two bells rang to announce the hour while on the steps a woman begged for change.

“Why is that woman sitting like that?” Carmen asked. She had run to the bench where Dolores sat. She caught her breath with a dramatic gulp.

“Children don’t ask questions,” Dolores said. “Don’t leave your sister behind.”

Elena sat on the concrete at the foot of the fountain, watching the women who click-clacked past in bell-shaped skirts and cat-eye glasses, a chicness that immediately separated the plaza women from campo women like Dolores who, no matter how much they washed, always wore a sheen and scent of dust and earth.

Dolores stayed until sunset, stayed until her stomach grumbled and the girls began to whine and cry. She paid the last few cents she had left besides bus fare for cucuruchos de maní from the plaza vendor, which quieted the girls long enough for the ride home.

Was she disappointed when Daniel found his way back three days later? Truthfully, yes. They were hungry. She’d desperately looked for work but every person she approached turned her away. Nobody wanted a two-year-old on their farm or in their factory, and with all four grandparents dead, she had no one to watch Elena.

But she had also never watched the hours unfold as when Daniel was gone, time offering up its bounty like the yuca she dug from the ground. Dolores did as she wanted. Dolores visited neighborhood women and crocheted on their porches, took long walks with her girls and ate plump guavas straight from the bush. Dolores forgot to check the time, had no need to ready anything for anyone at any specific moment, just the food they’d eat. She even listened to the radio—her radio now—and danced to Beny Moré and Bola de Nieve as she swept.

Daniel arrived grizzled, dirty, in borrowed fatigues too big for his frame. “I’m so hungry,” he said as he walked through the door.

Carmen cried out, ran to his side.

“There’s nothing,” Dolores said. “I had no money for the market.” Dolores readied herself for a reaction, but Daniel only stared and slumped into a chair.

“Two days ago,” he said, “I killed a man.”