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holding hands’ when you’re younger. Then when you’re twenty,the same people tell you it’s time to get married and make babies.”
    â€œAnd if you don’t? Do they kick you out?”
    â€œYou’re the maiden aunt expected to devote the rest of your life to any family member who needs help.” She presses her lips together for a moment. “Of course it bothers me that my brother’s the way he is. But ever since your grandmother died, he’s the only family I have.”
    My grandmother died while Papá was in prison. Mamá said Nonni Rosa died of a broken heart, knowing what the government was doing to her baby. And there was a sister between Ileana and Papá, who would have been my Tía Cecilia, except she and her boyfriend were killed in a car crash when she was nineteen.
    Tía Ileana continues, “And because you and Daniel are so far away, I’m the only family he has. You take care of family.”
    â€œHave you told him how you feel?”
    â€œHe knows prejudice is wrong. He just doesn’t apply it to himself.”
    The cold concrete of my father’s neighborhood closes in on me. Even if he isn’t my old papá , someone has to tell him that it makes no sense. Just like it makes no sense that he’d demand visitation rights for the summer and then never be around. Or that when he is around, he’d rather drink than spend time with me.

C HAPTER 5

    Friday, June 16: 66 days until I go home
    B efore she returns to her office, Tía Ileana gives me a grocery list and directions to a nearby shopping center. I take the same route, but instead of turning at the corner and going through the fancy neighborhood, I walk straight one more block to a major street and turn left. The trip is about a kilometer, which is six-tenths of a mile, and I’m not used to walking that far, breathing so much pollution, or making my way through hordes of people who push past me. At the first block of apartments above repair shops and hair-and-nail salons, the sun comes out and the temperature rises. By the time I get to the shopping center, I’m out of breath and sweaty. Then the wind picks up and I shiver.
    The entrance is narrow, crowded, and shabby, with faded paint, dirty windows, and papers blowing all over. It doesn’t look at all like the one my aunt said her company is building—more like what I remember from when I used to live here. Inside are two levels ofstores around an open plaza. The supermarket, about a quarter the size of the average one at home, is at the back end.
    First I buy the items on my list—heavy things like condensed milk and tomato sauce. Tía Ileana said I could spend the money left over on whatever I want. I bypass the packages of cookies and lug the two plastic grocery bags through the Friday afternoon crowds upstairs to the bookstore listed in the directory I saw on the way in. Like most of the stores in the plaza, it has a small, hand-lettered sign and sun-bleached merchandise in the window.
    I don’t know what I’m looking for. Papá and Tía Ileana own a ton of books, and this store seems to have little besides Spanish translations of Stephen King, Anne Rice, and other writers I can get cheaper at home and in English.
    After backing out the door, I notice a record store tucked between the bookstore and a children’s clothing store. I hoist the bags higher on my arms because the plastic handles are cutting off the circulation in my fingers.
    â€œWant some help?”
    A boy leans against the rusted railing, smoking a cigarette. Although he has a black leather jacket rather than an orange rain jacket, I think he’s the kid with the motorcycle who I saw before. He wears tight jeans and black Converse high-top sneakers. Close up, I noticehis razor-sharp hairline and solid lower jaw, his long lashes and dark brown eyes. He gives me a wide smile that reveals a small gap between his upper