The man’s eyes traveled from Karak’s hair, to his face, to his shoulders, assessing him. Karak’s anger steadily rose.

“I don’t need to take care of my wife, Alejandro,” Carlos said, his eyes never leaving Karak. “She’s married to a mexicano, as she should be. But your sister-in-law must learn some things.” He reached into his back pocket. Moonlight flashed on a blade. He seemed to hold both in his fist—the knife, the moonlight. Two of Carlos’s friends withdrew knives of their own. People gasped. Karak, unthinking, lunged toward Carlos. A blast shattered the air, the vibration echoing in Karak’s chest. He realized, dimly, it was a gunshot. It came from the direction of the house.

Jivan pushed his way to the front of the crowd, pointing the pistol at Carlos and his men. “Get out. Take your pandilla with you. Don’t come here again.” He aimed the gun at Carlos’s chest.

Carlos grimaced and backed away, stumbling, tripping on a chair behind him. His buttocks hit the ground without a sound in the soft sand. He waved to signal to his men, but there was no need to; they had already run off into the dark. He sprang up and ran after them.

KARAK HAD SAVED THE HAIR that Rosa had cut. It lay in the knot in which she had tied it, tucked in a wooden box that he had purchased at the general store. He stored it in the cabinet where Mrs. Eggenberger must have kept her china. He thought that he would be able to keep the hair in his new home, that it would not be present in his mind. But it weighed on him in a way he could not name. Perhaps as a betrayal, or regret. Perhaps as realization that he had harmed himself, but that if he were presented with the decision again, he would make the same choice.

Every day now he shaved and observed himself in the mirror that lay near the basin that Rosa kept in the kitchen. His mind wandered from the mirror, to the room in Esperanza’s home where the hair was cut, to Mrs. Eggenberger’s china cabinet. No, it would not do. In the early mornings when Rosa would awaken and find him there, shaving, she would smile in a way that was both shy and flirtatious. She would never imagine that he was thinking about the coil of hair, the wooden box, the cabinet.