The occasions when La Loca let people get close to her, when she permitted human contact at all, were few. Only her mother and the animals were ever unconditionally allowed to touch her. But without exception, healing her sisters from the traumas and injustices they were dealt by society—a society she herself never experienced firsthand—was never questioned.

Caridad kept up with Memo for several years until he finally made his choice. It was not Domitila of Belen and it wasn’t Caridad of Tome. It was the Marines. And off he went to be all that he never knew he was. For while it was said that the Army made men, the Marines’ motto, he was told, was that they only took men.

Three abortions later and with her weakness for shots of Royal Crown with beer chasers after work at the hospital where she was an orderly, Caridad no longer discriminated between giving her love to Memo and only to Memo whenever he wanted it and loving anyone she met at the bars who vaguely resembled Memo. At about the time that her sister, who was definitely not prettier than her but for sure had more brains, was on the ten o’clock nightly news, you could bet that Caridad was making it in a pickup off a dark road with some guy whose name the next day would be as meaningless to her as yesterday’s headlines were to Esperanza la newscaster.

Fe, the third of Sofi’s daughters, was fine. That is, twenty-four, with a steady job at the bank, and a hard-working boyfriend whom she had known forever; she had just announced their engagement. With the same job since high school graduation, she was a reliable friend to the “girls” at work. Fe was beyond reproach. She maintained her image above all—from the organized desk at work to weekly manicured fingernails and a neat coiffure.

She and Thomas, “Tom,” Torres were the ideal couple in their social circle, if one could call a social circle a group of three or four couples who got together on weekends to watch football on wide-screen television at Sadie’s, or to go to a Lobos game at the university, or rent videos or once in a while got all dressed up and went to Garduño’s for dinner.

Tom ran one of those mini-mart filling stations, sometimes working double shifts. He did not drink or even smoke cigarettes. They were putting their money away for their wedding, a small wedding, just for family and a few close friends, because they were going to use their savings for their first house.