That is her advantage and she has, to my genuine surprise, been wise enough not to spend it.

She has never once mentioned the eight years to him.

Carmen and my mother are not reconciled.

They are courteous.

They were in the same kitchen for two hours at Beto’s ninth birthday and it was fine, and Carmen said to me afterward, in a completely level voice, “I can be in a room with her.

That’s what I’ve got.

Don’t ask me for the other thing.”

I have not asked.

Part Seventeen: The Question I Had to Ask Once

I asked in the November, a year after the sidewalk, in her shop, in the afternoon, with Beto at school.