I haven’t kept up much since my husband’s passing. With this set of folks, the same subset with whom she feels she can allude to Jesus, she uses the term passing, death no more than a lane on a highway, for those speeding into the unknown.

Sorry for your loss, he says genuinely, one hand actually flying up to his heart. That Dr. Sawyer was a good man. Took care of my mother’s glaucoma. Yours truly, too. I called him up one Sunday afternoon, a thistle in my eye, and he had me drive over to his office, took it right out, didn’t charge a red cent.

That, more than the sheriff donation sticker, probably kept the Sawyers safe from speeding tickets.

Sounds like Sam all right, Antonia says wistfully. Then, too apropos not to add: he was the good cop to my bad cop.

Oh, I don’t know about that, the sheriff wags his head. You’re a pretty nice lady yourself. The freckles on his face sharpen. Ruddy-faced, big-chested, he looks good in that hat. Cowboyish and kind.

He has stepped inside the garage, peering into the corners, circling back to face her, nothing seems to have caught his eye that she can tell. Sorry to disturb you, he concludes.

Can I ask who reported the intruder?

You can, he concedes the point, but it’s me who can’t say. He looks away, not wanting to see the disappointment on her face. Let’s just say some people have nothing better to do than keep an eye on everyone else. He chuckles—a verb coined for his type of avuncular laughter.

Stay safe, he says for good-bye, and starts walking away, but then pivots, pulls out his wallet from his back pocket, and hands her his card. You see anything worrisome, anything, you give us a call. We’ll be right over. The civil servant’s royal we.

The card has a sheriff-star logo in soft focus, the contact information in sharp, black no-nonsense print. On the back, his handwritten extension.

Thank you, Sheriff. I’ll be okay. What she tells everybody. The best thing you can give the people who love you is to take care of yourself so you don’t become a burden on them.

Who is the most important one? Myself, myself, myself. Maybe Izzy decided on the second best thing: to disappear altogether from the isolation of self-care.

Feeling more urgency after the sheriff’s visit, Antonia heads next door to talk to Mario and José. She needs to make arrangements for Estela before she takes off for Massachusetts. She is getting out of her car when she runs into Roger, scowling as he comes back from the barn. Already a bad day and it’s only just begun.

Hey there, she says with the cheerful lilt of a kindergarten teacher. She launches into her story. A family emergency. A sister gone missing. The remaining sisters are convening in Western Mass, where the missing sister was last seen. We’re going to try to track her down.

Roger must be wondering why she’s giving him more information than he needs, front-loading, as it were, before she appends her request: Can Roger let Mario’s girlfriend (no need to go into details) stay another week?

Roger’s eyes narrow, studying her. Someone’s not telling the truth here. Last I heard, they broke up.

Antonia’s head seesaws, yes and no. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated, she responds.

Roger’s got a hundred and forty cows to milk and a back field to spray with liquid manure. He has no time for complications. Just answer the question, the TV judges instruct the gabby accused person on the witness stand. A yes or a no. So, is this the afterlife? Everything black or white? A heavenly court with St. Peter as judge. Yes or no. No complications.

Please, Antonia pleads. She knows she’s making a nuisance of herself, after resolving not to become a burden on anyone.

Roger lets out a sigh as if to expel some offending foreign matter. Is he asking himself, What is the right thing to do?

If the fellow wants to let her stay in the trailer, I don’t know about it.

Thank you, oh thank you, Antonia gushes, as if Roger has agreed to far more than just turning a blind eye to a girl in trouble.

Roger glances over her shoulder; his scowl deepens. She turns to see José and Mario walking back to their trailer on a break from their morning chores. They stop at the sight of el patrón and la do?ita talking. Instead of approaching, they wait deferentially to know the wishes of those in control.

It’s power Antonia doesn’t want. Never has. As a young woman, she dreaded getting her driver’s license: suddenly having control of four thousand pounds of steel and rubber and glass. A tremendous jump from her featherweight ninety-five pounds. She used to suffer from panic attacks those first few months after getting her license. She still feels anxious behind the wheel. I hate having power, Antonia would often say to Sam. But Sam didn’t buy her disclaimers. How about the power of being able to use words? Or being a teacher running a classroom? How about your power over me? And your beauty, he added, deflecting her defensiveness with a compliment. Beautiful women have that power over men.

She was hardly a beauty even as a young woman and definitely not as the middle-aged one he had met and married. But she was not about to accuse him of blindness when what he was seeing was delightfully in her favor.

Antonia signals to the two men to join them. She explains that el patrón is going to let Estela stay in the trailer until Antonia can get back from a family emergency. I’ll bring her over before I leave, Antonia adds. Mario stares at her in disbelief. Has she suffered total amnesia and forgotten his views from the day before? Did José talk with Mario, asking him to reconsider whether his honor would allow for forgiveness? Doesn’t she want to hear if Mario agreed?

No, not really. Antonia doesn’t have time to indulge agency, rights, agreements. She is the one with the power to say how their story will go. She does not return his gaze. She has rendered him invisible, like everyone else. Not something she would want to fess up to in that book of hers.

On the short drive back to her house, Antonia defends herself, pleading her case before the stern internal judge who, instead of a puritanical white-powdered wig, wears her mother’s face. Not surprisingly, Judge Mami often rules against her.

How much power does Antonia really have? Talk about powerless! She has lost her husband; her sister is missing. And behind these untimely losses, the timely ones, the whole flank of buffering elders, parents, tías, tíos, who have died in the natural progression of things, but still, natural or not, they leave behind holes in the heart, places of leakage where Antonia feels the depletion of spirit, the slow bleed of chronic grieving. Language used to be good at stanching the flow, the intense—call it desperate—need to get the words just right. But more and more words are inadequate . . . a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment, the poet wrote about writing, his lines showing no signs of inadequacy.

Antonia has had enough! Again she thinks of Job. Except for the skin disease, the dead cattle and kids, she could be Job, waiting for the other shoe to drop. What more will be asked of her? That is a stupid, stupid question, she tells herself in order to shame herself into acceptance. Just like God did to Job. But she is not God. Still, she doesn’t know any better than to dumbly, bluntly keep asking herself that question.

*

Like any lover with a go-between, Estela wants to know every detail of Antonia’s meeting with Mario: What did he say? What did la do?ita respond? How did he seem about the baby?

It’s all good, Antonia lies. A favorite phrase of her students, a polite way of saying, back off.

But even after being reassured, Estela looks dubious. What if Mario changes his mind again? Estela recounts how she ended up in la do?ita’s garage. Mario got drunk. He told her he was sending her back. She ran away. More of the story than Antonia would like to know—if she plans to get away at all.

I’ll talk to him and to José. What else can she do?

Go take a warm bath, she instructs the girl. I’ll put together some things for you.

Estela nods, the obedient girl who will not be straying from the narrow path again anytime soon.

Antonia calls the Open Door Clinic to set up an appointment. The receptionist greets her warmly. We’ve missed you, but no worries. The clinic has hooked up with the college’s Spanish department. An internship for double majors (Spanish and premed)—they come over to translate. The news momentarily appeases Antonia’s guilt. No need to feel it’s either her or the dragons. One of the easements of the First World, there’s always an organization or agency to pick up the slack. A passing of the moral buck. But what will this do over time to her sense of compassion?