resignation.
        “You okay?”
        “Yeah.”
        “Where’s your mom?”
        “I think she’s still in the apartment. She was there when I called you.”
        “So, what started this?”
        “Mom and I have been arguing a lot since Fiesta but I thought things were getting better. Then today I was just sitting in my bedroom and she yelled for me to come into the other room. When I got there, she threw a frying pan and a box of Albin at me, then tried to hit me with the rolling pin. She broke the window in my room. See?” She pointed to a broken window on the second floor.
        “But you don’t know why she’s mad?”
        “Well, like I said, we’ve been arguing a lot since Fiesta.”
        “Did something happen at Fiesta?”
        “Well, you know I was taking flamenco lessons at the rec center?”
        “Yes,” he nodded.
        “And I was chosen to dance on the Sanchez family float. There were five of us. I knew Mom wasn’t happy about my lessons or being in the parade, but she was still letting me do it. Then on the day of the parade, I was in my flamenco dress and just getting on the float when she started yelling and screaming and yanked me off and made me go home and miss the parade. Right in front of everybody!”
        From his experience with Simpática, this was not out of character.
        “And when we got home, she burned my Fiesta dress!”
        “She burned it?”
        “Yes! She took it outside behind the apartment and soaked it in lighter fluid and set it on fire!” The veins in her neck were bulging. “She was screaming and said I could never be in any parade and never take dance lessons again! And the dress wasn’t mine! It was loaned to me by the rec center. Then she cut up the dancing shoes I borrowed and made me throw them away. And a few days later, she went to the rec center and told Mrs. Monroe I lost the dress and she didn’t want them to give me dance lessons anymore.”
        “Oh, Maya, I’m sorry,” he said, then looked uneasily toward the apartment. “Do you think she’ll talk to me?”
        “I think so.”
        He steeled himself. “Alright. Let’s go.”
        As they walked up the slope to the apartment, he wondered if he