“No, no, don’t!” You are about to reach for me. I know it, you know it. But something holds you back; I’m willing to bet that it is my ugliness and quite possibly my glower. You lower your hands to your sides; they continue to twitch, so you ball them into fists. “Don’t do that, señor. I swore to my parents I’d work off tatay’s debt.”
Something about the way your head is bent, the way your fists uncurl and pluck at your checkered saya, the way your slippered feet dig into the ground where you stand makes me uncomfortable. What aren’t you telling me, I wonder? At last, I say, “All right. I won’t. But next time, you better let me know before you clean around here.”
You chuckle, a small sound. “The cleaning was as much for my benefit as yours.”
I feel the irritation rising in me again. “Wh
