Knowing that Domingo’s options weren’t many and not really wanting to see him suffer in prison, with his rheumatism and his bad days—after losing the girls one after the next worked itself into his joints and if he wasn’t out gambling, he was just sitting there all demoralized in his Lazy Boy in front of the television watching telenovelas, and predictions by Walter, the Puerto Rican mystic, or talk shows like Cara a Cara, where they brought on experts on devil worship in East Los Angeles or discussed marital infidelity or one really weird time where they had the mother of a woman whose dead seventeen-year-old virgin daughter was exhumed and raped by the camposanto caretakers in Miami (¡Hijola!) and fifteen-minute cooking programs sponsored by Goya Foods—Sofi quietly let the matter go, along with her beloved ranchería, which were all one and the same thing, of course.

The judge found it in his heart, however, having no need for the house, to let la Sofi continue to reside in her own home after she agreed to pay him a modest rent, something no one in that house had ever done before since her grandparents had built it with their own hands.

“What do you think?” she asked her comadre. “No more land and to top it all off, I am renting property built by my own abuelos!”

“I know what you mean, comadre,” empathized la Rita of Belen. “Me too. You know that my great-great-grandparents were the direct grantees of a land grant from King Felipe II, the very land I grew up on as a child. Except that what I grew up on was barely enough to plant a little corn, some calabasas, chiles, nomás, and graze a few goats and sheep to keep us alive.

“First the gringos took most of our land away when they took over the territory from Mexico—right after Mexico had taken it from Spain and like my vis-abuelo used to say, ‘Ni no’ habiamo’ dado cuenta,’ it all happened so fast! Then, little by little, my familia had to give it up ’cause they couldn’t afford it no more, losing business on their churros and cattle.

“Now all I have is my casita, too. Now that my kids are grown and had to leave the ranchería to find work elsewhere, I don’t worry so much. It’s just me and my husband, you know. And we manage on the little we get from our pension, I guess.”

Sofia patted her comadre’s hand. La Rita was a gifted weaver and the cooperative owed her a lot for her beautiful rugs that she sold on behalf of everybody. The two tired women smiled sadly at each other and kept stacking little cans of tomato sauce on the shelves as precisely and patiently as if they were knotting loops on the loom frame for a cobija.