Excerpt from the drafty novel in my drawer

A woman answered, holding a child of about two; there was a lot of yelling in the house, and as the woman was looking them over, silent, Sam in his nervousness looked straight through her into her little house; it was one room with faded flowered curtains blocking off two compartments. There was nothing on the stove. In the far end of the room a little shrine burned with candles in front of a picture of a saint Sam didn't recognize. A face peeked out quickly then hid again behind one of the curtains. The two children who were yelling, around school age, were playing at whipping each other with rods on the dirt floor.