But there are still those for whom there is no kindness in their hearts for a young woman who has enjoyed life, so to speak. Among them were the sheriff’s deputies and the local police department; therefore Caridad’s attacker or attackers were never found. No one was even ever detained as a suspect. And as the months went by, little by little, the scandal and shock of Caridad’s assault were forgotten, by the news media, the police, neighbors, and the church people. She was left in the hands of her family, a nightmare incarnated.

When Esperanza finally managed to get her mother to come home to try to rest a bit, they found Fe dozing off in her room and La Loca nowhere around. They didn’t find her in the roperos, under the beds, not out in the stalls with the horses. The dogs would not reveal where she was, staring blankly at Sofi when she asked them about La Loca’s whereabouts. Esperanza suggested calling the police. La Loca never left the house except to go out in the stalls, or walk down to the ditch, and though she rode, she never went out at night. Surely, the two women thought, after their having been gone for more than twelve hours, the two women thought, La Loca must have wandered off, not knowing what else to do.

But just as Esperanza was dialing the emergency number she heard a distinct clunk sound from inside the wood-burning stove in the living room. Sofi and the dogs heard it too and they all rushed at once to pull La Loca out. “Mom, is Caridad dead?” La Loca asked, soot-covered, arms around her mother’s shoulders. She was crying. “No, ’jita, your sister is not dead. Gracias a Dios.”

Just then Fe woke up and the walls began to vibrate with her screaming and since everyone including the dogs and cats had been concentrating on La Loca for a moment, they gave a start, in unison. La Loca began to cry harder and Sofi, who couldn’t take no more the reality of a permanently traumatized daughter, another who was more ghost than of this world, and a third who was the most beautiful child she had given birth to and who had been cruelly mutilated, let herself sink into the couch and began to sob.

“Mom. Mom. Please, don’t give up,” Esperanza called out, but she did not come to put her arms around her mother’s hunched shoulders. “Aw!” Esperanza said, clearly trying not to give in to it all herself. Although this was far from the right moment to spring her news on her family, she found herself announcing, “I’ve just been offered a job in Houston. I don’t know for sure if I should take it …”

No one heard her anyway. Being the eldest, she was used to her mother’s preoccupation with her younger sisters. Caridad, because she was too beautiful; Fe, because her compulsions wound her up too tight; and the baby, La Loca, because she was kind of … well, loca. Esperanza threw her hands up in the air and went to bed.