Sometimes it irritated her, the way Penelope saw nothing: how selfish her father was, how much she needed to be left alone. The girl sulked about, carrying a stack of her latest drawings, waiting to be noticed, or marching into the bedroom and interrupting Mirella when she wanted to rest. But other times, the girl looked at her with a shine on her face, the way she sometimes looked at her father, and Mirella wanted to gather her into her arms and squeeze her, to breathe her in. She tapped Penelope on the forehead. “All right, hija,” she said. “For you, it’s blue.”
