Everyone had troubles. At least neither Sofi nor la doña Rita were on food stamps. But Sofia didn’t want to remind her comadre that when it came to retirement time for herself, Sofia would no longer even have the satisfaction of knowing that she would die in her own home. And that really was the final straw for her.

So, without exchanging two words about her decision with Domingo who surely must have seen it coming anyway, Sofia had her peacock-raising lawyer serve the papers she figured were twenty years overdue, and told him to leave.

But back then, to be excommunicated was more fearful to Sofia than the thought of destitution; not to mention that her mother was still alive then, and her mother had been like the Church’s conscience incarnated to her daughter. If anything ever brought the fear of God to Sofi even more than the thought of being excommunicated it was her mother’s disapproval, so divorce had been out of the question.

Sofi had devoted her life to being a good daughter, a good wife, and a good mother, or at least had given it all a hell of a good try, and now she asked herself—“¿Y pa’ qué? ¡Chingao!” She said this aloud and then crossed herself. Now there was no mother to honor, no father to respect, no ‘jitas to sacrifice for, no rancho to maintain, and no land left to work. Nothing to look out for no more, except for la Loquita, her eternal baby.

If the butcher shop no longer belonged solely to Sofi, it was also not Sofi’s sole worry to keep it going. Since she didn’t have no land left to graze her own livestock, it was beyond her means to run a butcher shop. After all, you sure couldn’t run no meat market with a few measly chickens and an occasional pig to slaughter!

After Domingo received the divorce papers, he left without making any big mitote about it. Why be a bigger hypocrite than the Judge Julano, and act like he was sorry and would never do it again?

Sofia’s heart did not allow her to just put him out on the street, however. So, Domingo, with her permission, went to live in the adobe in Chimayo which he had built with his own hands for Caridad, but which she never got to live in, pobrecita. Sofi let him stay there for approximately the same amount of rent she was having to pay el Judge Julano. So, in terms of the sad rent business, and as far as any of Sofi’s comadres could tell, Sofia looked like she at least came out even. But, you and I both know that without a steady job and with Domingo’s steady gambling, on most months nobody could hardly call it even between them.