She came over on the eighteenth of September 2024 with a tray of enchiladas and she stood in my kitchen while I put them in the refrigerator and she said, in Spanish, which she does when she is going to say something she has thought about:

“Javier.

I told you in the spring.”

And I said, “Told me what?”

And Lupita Serna said: “About the shouting.”

Here is what happened, and I have gone over it with her twice because I needed to be sure I had it right and not the version that flatters me.

In the April of 2023 — eighteen months before any of this — I was unloading the truck in the driveway on a Saturday morning and Lupita came over to the fence and said something to me about the house being noisy during the week.

I remember the conversation.