But there he was twice a week buying lamb chops or murcia (which he probably threw at the neighbors’ dogs on the way home), just to get a chance to chat with la Sofi. Sofia, with those funny-colored eyes that were not green or gray or brown but something in between that changed with the light, and with that pretty brown skin to contrast with them!

No, Sofi never did let herself have a good time. Of course, who could blame her, with that strange child of hers with that peculiar affliction of being allergic to people? She couldn’t go nowhere and no one could ever visit very long at her house. Well, la abandonada Sofi did her best, turning out her girls however she could under the conditions and tests that God put on her. So it was no surprise that none of her daughters had been able to get married by the Church.

It was tragic how the oldest one (although not very surprising since she had always been high-strung—no, high-strung was not the right word, a mitotera, a troublemaker about politics, as if she knew so much) had got herself missing in Saudi Arabia. Her name was mentioned on the ten o’clock news almost every night. But now since the whole war business was over, people seemed to be losing interest, and in the meantime, Sofi’s girl was still missing. Maybe she was killed out there. The comadre made the sign of the cross at the thought.

If Sofi’s eldest ’jita and her baby ’jita had been tragic victims of life—one who never left home and the other who had strayed too far—there was still a little bit of hope for the two middle daughters. Although, let’s face it, La Armitaña—la comadre quickly dropped the “santa” from that daughter’s new “title” after la Caridad had neglected to go out and bless her crops—had always been a little pathetic.

For instance, here you had a case of a pretty girl who really had no business leading the kind of life she had been living before, going to bars all the time, letting any pelao who felt like it have his way with her. Everybody still remembered the very shameful start she had, getting pregnant from that mocoso, Memo, and all that embarrassing business for la pobre Sofi—without a man to put a stop to such things.

And ese Memo shamefully running around behind Caridad’s back like he did when they had just gotten married and she was expecting. He really should have been more of a man and just settled down to support his new familia instead of running away to the Army or wherever it was he’d gone off to. La Caridad, obviously, had taken it real hard, being young and in love and all and ended up ruining her life because of that whole disgraceful mess.