He felt the flash of clarity in her meaning. The D.A.’s jovial conversation. How he had brought a stool and shared soda pop and had wanted to know about Karak’s past in Hong Kong, in Shanghai, in the Philippines. About his childhood. He had been made a fool when he agreed to grow that lettuce. Now Rosa knew he had been made a fool again.

“No,” he said.

The intensity of her gaze was too much, the round luminous eyes, the full lips. Suddenly the tears came and her face contorted.

“No,” he said again, in his most authoritative voice, and turned his back to her. Why did she question his knowledge, his dignity in everything?

They stood like that for a long time. Why did she not have the sense to leave?

He could hear her sniffling, wiping her nose. “The children ask about you.”

He stiffened, readying to defend himself again.

“They miss you,” she said.

How good it was to hear—just that little bit.

“Federico always thinks of life on the farm,” she said.

He turned to her. She was looking at him, but it was not with love; what he saw in her eyes was pity. He stepped toward her but she did not reach for him. He put his hands over hers as they grasped the bars. They stayed like that—her hands clenching the bars, his placed upon hers. She did not take her hands away. On the day of their wedding, those hands had cut his hair, had remade him. She had determined so much of his life. But now she stood looking past him, her eyes focused on something beyond his shoulder.

“I am scared for the children in school,” she said. “I have kept them home for these days.”

He released her hands. He had not thought of what would happen to them. “You cannot keep them from school,” he said.

“They will go to the one near the barrio.”

“The Mexican school?” There were so many consequences. He had been angry at Clive, he had been humiliated, he had defended himself, and now the consequences grew and grew like roots in the soil.

“What will you do?” she asked. The question itself made them separate people. And it was without meaning; there was nothing for him to do but wait.

“Jivan Singh will know what to do. Ask him. And Ram.” He knew that she would not ask.

Rosa stepped away. “I am going back,” she said. He felt a pang.

“Will you—visit again?” he asked. He would be taken back to El Centro, and the distance would be difficult for her to travel, but that was not why he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately. Her lip was quivering. “Por supuesto.” But she didn’t look back as she stepped toward the door.

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