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arms and set it on the floor.
    A silent television flickered in the corner, pictures changing rapidly, showing weather across the nation. The light made me think of the fire my grandparents had kept in the hearth. Grandma liked the soft noise of the crackling logs and the light of the licking flames, even though it was too hot most days in Los Angeles to have a fire. Mom musthave missed the fire, too, because I had found her many times with her back to the TV, the sound off, her eyes watching the light change across the wall.
    Mom was sleeping on the couch, blankets twisted around her limbs. I pulled the pouch from my pocket and set it near her pillow. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer for a milagro, then touched her shoulder, her yellowed skin loose on her thin bones.
    “Momma,” I whispered, and breathed deeply, taking her exhaled breath into my lungs. I couldn’t smell alcohol, and that made me hopeful that maybe she would keep her promise this time. But hope was a tool the devil used against me, tricking me into believing my mother’s words.
    I set the puppy on her lap. It startled her. Her eyes opened, black beads pushed inward by puffy lids. She looked at the little dog, her face blue-green in the jumping TV light. She leaned on an elbow and grabbed the puppy to keep it from falling off the couch. Pink fuzz from the blanket caught on the puppy’s nose.
    “I brought you a present,” I said. “Someone to keep you company when I’m at school.”
    “I can’t have a dog,” she said. “How can we feed it? We don’t got money for a dog. You take it back.” That was what she said, but already she was letting it lick her ear. I smiled but didn’t let her see my smile.
    “What are you going to name it?” I asked.
    “I can’t keep it,” she said, picking the fuzz from its nose.
    Boxer peeked in the front door, his cheeks powdered with dirt, sucking on two fingers.
    “There’s your little crumb-snatcher Boxer, begging at the front door,” Mom said, and kissed the dog’s wet nose. “Better get him out of here before the Mulligans make stew of us.” She laughed at that, but I never got her jokes. Then her voice got nasty-mean. “Go away, Boxer. Go away,” she said like she was chasing flies.
    “I’ll take care of it,” I said.
    I took Boxer to the kitchen and wet a paper towel to wash his face. I liked the way he held his face up to me, eyes squinched closed, lips pursed. I let my hands linger on his face and gently washed his lips and finally behind his ears—the way I had always wanted my mother to touch me. Sometimes when I was a little girl, I would play with my mother’s hand, pretending her hand was a doll. She’d let me hold the hand, kiss the fingers, cuddle the arm while she drank her beers and smoked with her free hand and talked to dark men. Playing with her hand was the only way I could feel her touch.
    When I finished washing Boxer’s face, I kissed his nose and gave him a roll of Life Savers. Boxer smiled. I think he liked my washing his face better than the Life Savers.
    “Boxer, you better get out of here before your brothers come looking for you with a switch.”
    He sat down on the floor and worked his chubby fingers around the paper covering the candy. He opened it too far, and the Life Savers fell out and danced across the room.
    “Boxer, you go on home,” I said, helping him pick up the candy and stuff it into his pockets.
    He smiled.
    “Come on,” I said. “I’ll help you sneak out.”
    I walked him into the backyard. Too late. Judd was standing beneath the avocado tree. When he saw me with his baby brother, he spit fire.
    “What are you doing with Boxer?” he said.
    “I don’t speak English,” I answered.
    “You bitch, you’re speaking it now,” he said.
    “Yes, but these are the only words I know,” I said calmly.
    He was still calling me names when I locked the back door. I had broken into their home many times when I was younger, stealing milk,