He is Aureliano Restrepo and everybody calls him Lalo and he was sixty-nine and he came to Illinois from Medellín when he was twenty-four and he has spent forty-five years avoiding institutions of every kind for reasons that are entirely rational given where he grew up.

He said: “Mija.

You have brought the state into this family.”

And I said, “Papi, a hospital brought the state into this family.

It’s a law.

Dr.

Adeyemi had to call before he even spoke to me.”

And he said: “And then you kept talking to them.”