Yes. It was their father, Sofi’s husband, who had returned “after all those years” as they would say around Tome for a long time to come. Some say, that was the true miracle of that night. All kinds of stories circulated as to what had happened to him “all those years.” Most of the rumors he would start himself, and when he would get tired of hearing them played back always with some new variation or detail of exaggeration added to them which did not quite suit his taste, he pretended to get angry about them, stopped them, and started a new story all over again.

For example, the favorite chisme that went around about him was that he had been living down in Silver City, running a gambling operation and living the high life. After the story circulated awhile, the gambling operation became part of a house of ill-repute. Domingo found this addition to the story amusing, even something to boast about with his friends down at Toby’s Package Liquors, or after Mass in the church courtyard. But when people started to say that Domingo had married the woman who owned and ran the brothel, Domingo got angry. He was many things, but a bigamist, nunca.

With regards to his own adventures, he quickly realized he had considerable competition with La Loca’s life, which she herself didn’t relate but which he invariably heard about from everyone else. When he tried to get her to fly to the roof or stick herself in the wood-burning stove, she simply stared at him as if such suggestions were absurd. However, the one thing she did confirm was her repulsion for human contact when ever he came close to her, unless she was the one who initiated it, which, believe it or not, once in a while she did.

She would approach him when he was eating or watching television and sniff him. Since he didn’t want to scare her off, he’d remain still and pretend he didn’t notice what she was doing.

“’Jita,” Sofi asked her daughter one day when they were alone, “what is it that you smell when you smell your father?”

“Mom,” La Loca said, “I smell my dad. And he was in hell, too.”

“Hell?” Sofi said, thinking her daughter, who didn’t have any sense of humor at all, was trying to make a joke.

But instead Loca replied quite soberly, “Mom, I been to hell. You never forget that smell. And my dad … he was there, too.”

“So you think I should forgive your dad for leaving me, for leaving us all those years?” Sofi asked.