Unfortunately, nothing and no one could quiet Fe down. She wanted her Tom back. And even when Caridad managed to get some tranquilizers from her hospital friends, Fe would only shut up for an hour or two at a time when she slept. She even screamed while she was being fed (because now it was Sofi and her daughters who took turns feeding, cleaning, and dressing poor Fe, who was truly a mess and who—if she were in any way capable of realizing it—would have been horrified at that thought).

Meanwhile, La Loca did what she could. She sewed a padded headband for Fe so that when she banged her head against the wall, as she increasingly did while she screamed, she wouldn’t hurt herself as bad. She also prayed for her, since that was La Loca’s principal reason for being alive, as both her mother and she well knew.

Above all, however, she prayed for Tom, because like so many hispanos, nuevo mexicanos, whatever he wanted to call himself, something about giving himself over to a woman was worse than having lunch with the devil. Yes, he had susto. But no tea and no incantations by the curandera his mother brought over to relieve him of it would ever cure him. The mere mention of Fe was enough to set him off into a cold sweat. So La Loca prayed for him because in a few years he would probably look for a new novia to marry while no one, not even Mrs. Torres, not even he himself, would know that he was still suffering from the inability to open his heart.

Fe and her bloodcurdling wail became part of the household’s routine so that the animals didn’t even jump or howl no more whenever Fe, after a brief intermission when she dozed off, woke up abruptly and put her good lungs to full use. But it was Caridad who, being selfless would never have thought of becoming the center of attention, ultimately caused the entire household, including animals, to forget Fe when she came home one night as mangled as a stray cat, having been left for dead by the side of the road.

There was too much blood to see at the time, but after Caridad had been taken by ambulance to the hospital, treated and saved (just barely), Sofi was told that her daughter’s nipples had been bitten off. She had also been scourged with something, branded like cattle. Worst of all, a tracheotomy was performed because she had also been stabbed in the throat.

For those with charity in their hearts, the mutiliation of the lovely young woman was akin to martyrdom. Masses were said for her recovery. A novena was devoted to her at the local parish. And although Sofi didn’t know who they all were, a dozen old women in black came each night to Caridad’s hospital room to say the rosary, to wail, to pray.