drawer.
        “What’s she doing?” he asked.
        Suddenly she wielded a large butcher knife. “Wait a minute,” Mike shouted, abandoning the Spanish. “Give me the knife, Simpática. Put down the knife.”
        But she fell to her knees and pressed the point against her chest. “Maya. Apuñalame en la corazón! Mate a tu mamá!” Stab me in the heart. Kill your mother.
        “Oh, stop it,” Maya said. “Kill yourself.”
        Mike looked at the girl in disbelief. How could she say that?
        “Simpática, give me the knife,” he demanded.
        But she ignored him and crawled to Maya’s side, handing her the knife. “Here Maya. You stab your mother! Kill me, Maya. Kill me!”
        Refusing to take the knife, Maya said, “No, Mom. I’m not going to kill you.”
        Seeing his chance, Mike lunged forward and seized the knife. “No knives!”
        Her big play over, Simpática gazed vacantly to the floor. “You kill your mother, Maya. You kill hore. You do not lauve hore.”
        “Yes, I do, Mom. I love you. I really do love you. But I just get mad when you’re mean to me. You can’t always be so mean to me.”
        Simpática stood and stalked to the front door and yanked it open. “Okay, Maya! You go! This is not your casa!”
        “Okay,” Maya said coolly. “You don’t want me here anyway.” She stood and walked out the door, then her footsteps clomped down the outer stairs.
        Mike wasn’t sure what to do now. He thought of the broken figure next to him and couldn’t imagine the horror of being her, or of living with her. Finally, knowing not what else to do, he stood and said, “Okay, Simpática. I will leave now.”
        Back in the courtyard, he said to Maya, “Can I take you to Luz’s house? Maybe you could stay there for a couple days till your mother’s in a better mood.”
        Gazing past him, she said, “No. No matter how long I’m gone, she’ll be the same when I get back.”
        As they walked down the embankment to his car, she said, “Do you ever wish you were never born? Does life ever seem like a cruel joke?”
        He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess it does sometimes.”
        “Everyone else is having fun and enjoying their lives, but whenever my life starts to go well,