“We’re divorced now,” Sofi answered, not wanting to beat around the bush about it. Besides, no longer thinking that her marriage or divorce was anybody’s business, she wanted to get to the point about Loca’s health, “Doctor, is my daughter just depressed? You know, losing the girls, as we have …”

“No, she is not just depressed,” Mrs. Doctor said. “Although understandably, Sofi, I’m sure she must be heartbroken about losing her sisters … as we all are, you know.”

Sofi lowered her head and prepared herself now for the worst. She fixed her gaze on the pattern of her leopard-print leggings. Ever since she started working out at the jazzercise class at the local Y, partly out of a desire to tone up and partly just to get some nervous energy out of her system that she no longer knew what to do with, she had taken to wearing spandex. (“¡Ay, comadre!” her comadres teased her. “Who do you think you are, anyway, una teenager?” Sofi ignored them because deep down she knew they all wished they had her naturally petite figure.)

“Your daughter is very ill,” Doctor Tolentino finally declared, taking a deep breath. He waited a few seconds to see if Sofi was ready to hear the rest, and seeing her more or less composed, went on, “Only about twenty percent of my terminally ill patients survive my efforts, señora Sofi, but I am willing to try if you and she want me to …”

“What are you saying? Speak clearly, please, doctor! What is my daughter … ill from? What does she have?”

“Have you heard of the human immunodeficiency virus, Sofi?” Mrs. Doctor asked.

Sofi stared at the wife and then at the doctor. Of course she had. And she only knew two things about it: that there was no known cure for this frightening epidemic and … there was no way that Loca could have gotten it. But Doctor Tolentino was a doctor so he couldn’t be wrong and she said nothing. Yet to herself she said, tomorrow we will call doña Felicia, and then we’ll go to the hospital for tests, and then …

“Sofi,” the doctor stopped her thoughts. “Before you do anything else regarding your daughter’s condition, do you have enough trust in me to try my own last efforts? I can’t promise anything, Sofi, but if you have faith, we can all try. She is your only surviving child y me duele mucho to think of you losing her too … We could talk it over with her father about it first, if you prefer.”

Sofi shook her head but did not look up from her fluorescent pants. “You know I am a great devotee of our Lord, Su Hijo y La Virgen, doctor, and I resign myself to Their Will. I’ve known you all my life and I trust in your knowledge.”