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were like siblings in this family. They ate, sang, played, and danced. Then the cycle repeated itself. Sammy had no choice but to have a good time.
    Rebecca, the middle of the three daughters, spent a good portion of the day trying to coerce Sammy into going on a walk around the block with her. At first, he saw no harm in this and nearly said yes, but then he saw another young couple in the family returning from a “walk around the block” and they both appeared fairly disheveled. Not wanting to incur any more suspicion from Adam, he politely declined Rebecca’s offers.
    Finally, at midnight, the whole crowd went outside and lit fireworks with the rest of the neighborhood. Rather than waiting until morning, as Sammy was used to, the Hernandes celebrated Christmas Day as soon as it was Christmas. No sooner had the last firework exploded, then they went inside and opened presents.
    Sammy expected to receive nothing. What more could he want than food, shelter, and a job? The Hernandes family thought differently. From his newfound friends he received a change of clothes and a leather necklace from which hung a miniature replica of the Cristo Redentor carved from wood.
    “Now you’ll have something to wear besides Adam’s old things,” Karéna told him.
    “And you can remember your time here after you go home,” Rebecca added.
    Sammy thanked them so many times they had to tell him to stop.
    The day after Christmas, Floyd woke Sammy and Adam early in the morning to drive to the family shop and prepare it for opening. They got up, bleary eyed and yawning from the previous days’ festivities, and headed to the car.
    Floyd had already taught Sammy how to wrap meats. “That’s all you’ll do is wrap them up,” he’d explained on Sammy’s first day in the shop. “Cutting meats is too difficult. You can never learn enough in one week. Even I haven’t perfected my craft, not after many, many years.”
    So Sammy stayed in the back of the store with Adam and Fernando. Fernando was an apprentice and cousin of the Hernandes family. Judging by the tattoos up and down Fernando’s arms, he had a thing for the Catholic saints. When Sammy asked him about them, Fernando just chuckled.
    “You gotta have someone watching your back, right, man?”
    Sammy also quickly learned that Fernando’s favorite thing to say was man . “You got that order, man? You need some help, man? I met this girl the other day . . . so hot, man! She melted my teeth, man!” It wore on Sammy’s nerves.
    When Floyd was in front with customers, Fernando took over the responsibility of cutting meats. Sammy discovered he actually enjoyed butchering once he got past the goriness of it. Floyd’s shop had an amazing collection of knives and tools. Fernando said that they prepared over three dozen kinds of meat and fish. Occasionally they special ordered them for the wealthy customers. Before Sammy wrapped them, Fernando and Adam diced, sliced, peppered, or tenderized the cuts until they met Floyd’s demanding specifications.
    From morning until evening, whether it was salami, turkey, beef, mutton, or whatever, Sammy prepared and packaged the cut meats alongside Adam and Fernando. Even though the two boys helped him and showed him how to do things, Sammy felt like an outcast. Part of this feeling came from the fact that Adam still did not like Sammy, and his distrust slowly carried over to Fernando. He often caught Adam watching him from the corner of his eye, and had to endure Fernando double checking most of his tasks. He was fairly sure they were trying to catch him stealing, which he found humorous, given his past criminal behavior.
    In fact, he’d been very careful not to do anything unusual around the family, particularly Adam. He also kept a close guard on what he said about himself, always making sure he kept his story straight. He did not want to arouse any doubt surrounding his circumstances. As far as Floyd and his wife knew, he was Albert, a