Carmen was surprised to find that Mario had crossed the street, that he stood on the lawn of the neighbor’s house, the monster house. He faced away from her, so he couldn’t know that she was there, watching him. Mario shook a cigarette pack on the palm of his hand and pulled one out. He lit it with a hand cupped around the flame. Then he took something else out of his pocket, something orange, a small cylinder.

As if on cue, Carmen heard the growl from before, the shriek, as Mario flinched and dropped his cigarette.

“What was that?” she yelled, rushing to his side. “What was that?”

Mario turned to face her, his mouth agape. “I—don’t know,” he said. “It sounded like … a lion almost?”

“No!” Carmen yelled. “In your hand! What was that? A medicine bottle, wasn’t it? You’re trying to ruin her again, aren’t you?”

Mario’s mouth still hung open, and he looked at Carmen as if taking her in for the first time. She regretted the suit, felt ridiculous in her sensible heels, sweat rolling down her back. She wondered what Jeanette had told Mario. If she shared too much, if she talked too much. But Carmen felt triumphant. She felt like she was confronting someone for the first time in her life. A hunter. He was the lion seeping blood into the street. He was the lion dirtying her beautiful neighborhood.

Mario dug into his pocket again and pulled out a prescription bottle.

“I knew it!” Carmen screamed.

Mario handed the bottle to her and Carmen looked at the label. Prilosec. Her late husband had taken the same prescription antacid. He had suffered from terrible heartburn. When they walked back to the house, Mario didn’t mention the growl again. They didn’t speak at all.

Inside, Carmen began to clear plates loudly though Rosalinda still picked at the congrí. Her guests quieted in her presence. Diana’s eight-year-old daughter—or was she Susana’s daughter? there were too many children to keep track of—followed her into the kitchen. Carmen could hear laughter in the dining room.

“Hi,” the someone’s daughter said. “My mom said guests should bring their plates to the kitchen.”

“Oh,” Carmen said, annoyed. She didn’t want to speak to anyone. “That is very nice of you, Ana.”

“That’s not my name,” the girl whose name wasn’t Ana said.

Carmen snapped off her rubber gloves. She leaned against the counter and considered the child.

“My name is Lila,” Lila said.

Ana, Ana. It came to her, why she’d called her that.

Lila squinted up at her.