I walked into Olivia’s room and all the saints had their back to her. San Miguel wasn’t watching over her? Gorda asks. Not even San Miguel, my grandmother says, he was looking straight at the radiator. And you know what else, Olivia’s clock was blinking eleven, eleven. As if to record the moment it all happened. And today is the eleventh. And Olivia’s birthday is 11/11 and it was at eleven that Soledad walked into this house after being gone for twenty-two months, and half of that is eleven, she says, and narrows her eyes.
