Every Dominican family has stories about crazy loves, about niggers who take love too far, and Oscar’s family was no different. His abuelo, the dead one, had been unyielding about one thing or another (no one ever exactly said) and ended up in prison, first mad, then dead; his abuela Nena Inca had lost her husband six months after they got married. He had drowned on Semana Santa and she never remarried, never touched another man. We’ll be together soon enough, Oscar had heard her say. Your mother, his tía Rubelka had once whispered, was a loca when it came to love. It almost killed her. And
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