“Domingo! Domingo!” Sofia called her husband, who was in the living room watching a football game on television. He came medio asustao because he knew by his Sofia’s tone that something had her frightened.

None of their attempts to revive Caridad worked. Instead, slowly on her own she broke out of the trance. And when she looked around, as if wondering what these people with frowns on their faces were concerned about, she announced, “Esperanza is here …”

Esperanza had blown the job offer in Houston back when she first got together with Rubén. Maybe that had been for the better since as it had turned out that was where his ex-wife and child had gone to start their new lives; and Esperanza was the kind of woman who felt that no town was big enough for the two exes of one man. But come to think of it, Esperanza was the kind of woman that no town was big enough for no matter what category one might put her in.

That’s why, when another big-time opportunity came along not long after for Esperanza, local star reporter, that time she did take it. By then, aside from it being a great career break, it was pretty clear to her that there was no need of her on the homefront. Her sisters had recovered. And with the reappearance of her father a likely resurrection of her parents’ marriage seemed forthcoming, which was one more reason why Esperanza thought that her mother might not need her around no more. Finally, after playing out the renewed romance with her ex-love, Rubén, she concluded that fatality for them as a couple was only inevitable. They had one last sweat up at Taos Pueblo and parted at dawn as amigos. With little left to keep her locally, Esperanza had left for Washington, D.C., a month before to take a post as an anchorwoman with a major television station and had not been back since.

“Esperanza is going far away … and she’s afraid …,” Caridad continued. “We should keep her home, Mama …,” Caridad finished, her voice drifting off as she fell into a sound sleep.

Don Domingo scratched his head of thick salt-and-pepper hair, relieved that his daughter was back to normal, and without comment went back to his Lazy Boy chair in the living room. But Sofia and Loca stared at each other and waited.

Momentarily they heard don Domingo call from the living room, “Jesus Christ!” The screen door opened and closed with a little squeak. Esperanza’s mother and sister went to the door to greet her and with artificial levity she told them that she had just decided to see them all because she was homesick. “I just got to thinking how much I missed everybody, so I got on a plane and here I am!”

“Who got you at the airport, ’jita, Rubén?” Sofia asked.