Babysitters who six months ago doubted her degree unbutton their blouses, all because she is now one hundred a day. She handles her stethoscope like a clarinet. “Very expensive, Lola. More than two thousand pesos.” But I know the price of a stethoscope: we purchased one for Issa long ago.“Heart murmur,” she tells Mai-ling, “You know you have that? You go where they have EKG. Do you get Kaiser?”“No. I work seven days.”The doorbell rings. Tarek, the bottom helper of my weekend employer, carries a pink box tied with string. The birthday cake. “I’ll put it in the fridge.” He is used to this house already. He follows me into a fight of hard whispers.“Almost thirty-three already,” Ruth says.“It is Luisita,” Mai-ling tells us. “She will not hear anyone but Tony.”“There was a dentist, Lola,” Esperanza says. The boyfriend of Esperanza, he is not her boyfriend anymore. The divorce, he said, cost him too much. So he can stay rich, he went back to the ex-wife.
