I’ll pour her a drink , and the wife will fry up her special pastelitos ; I’ll ask her about her mother as lightly as I can , and bring out the pictures of the three of us from back in the day, and when it starts getting late I’d take her down to my basement and open the four refrigerators where I store her tio’s books, his games, his manuscript, his comic books, his papers — refrigerators the best proof against fire, against earthquake , against almost anything.
A light, a desk, a cot — I’ve prepared it all.
How many nights will she stay with us?
As many as it takes.
And maybe, just maybe, if she’s as smart and as brave as I’m expecting she’ll be, she’ll take all we’ve done and all we’ve learned and add her own insights and she’ll put an end to it.
That is what, on my best days, I hope. What I dream.