On top of that, the sister’s husband also had a dog that for the life of him he would not give up despite the fact that the dog hated him. Worst of all, it hated everybody. Doña Felicia lived in dread that the dog might one day take a chunk out of one of the man’s own little children, or even her, and so she took to carrying her escopeta, the very same firearm that her first husband Juan used in the revolution, all around the grounds with her, even when she just went out to check the mailbox down the road. It went against all of doña Felicia’s principles, of course, but the idea of mixing a little rat poison into the dog’s food did cross her mind more than once whenever she saw how those children trembled when that four-legged beast bared its teeth, eye-to-eye with their little faces.

Now doña Felicia was not only out of the income she had depended on—because although the excuses at the first of the month came in abundance the rent money being delivered continued to dwindle, until the sixth month of the family’s occupancy when she ultimately received nothing, not even an excuse—but with six adults, five children, and a mean, ugly dog occupying Caridad’s little home, there was no telling in what condition they were going to leave it.

And leave it they did, without notifying doña Felicia, of course. She had slept all too soundly, to their advantage, that night, for they had taken in tow all of Caridad’s stuff. Crayon marks and the dog’s teeth and claw marks on the doors and baseboards were one thing, not paying the rent was another, but outright theft was wrong indeed.

Doña Felicia felt compelled to tell Caridad’s parents about the disgraceful loss, expressing all her regrets. But even though she offered to replace Caridad’s possessions, there remained the fact that Caridad herself was still lost and don Domingo and Sofi thought that anything short of the replacement of their daughter was unnecessary.

“¡Hijola! doña Felicia! Those good-for-nothings were just taking advantage of you all along! They saw a woman your age, all alone, and they thought, ¡Chingao! We can dance all over her property and nobody will tell us nothing!” don Domingo said to doña Felicia while Sofi nodded. Doña Felicia looked at each of them. They were right. She was able-minded and certainly got around admirably well despite her age, but she had let those sin vergüenzas take advantage of her in a way that she would not have done when she was younger, or perhaps if she had been less in need when she rented out the trailer to them.