NACHO SIGHS AND THEN EMITS A WHISTLE OF exasperation through his teeth. He can’t bring himself to look at his wife, Maricris, because he suspects that he will start to weep, and Nacho knows that he is an ugly cry. So Nacho forces his eyes to focus on the balustrade that runs along the perimeter of their porch. And this makes him wonder about the men—for surely only men did that type of work in 1927, the year their house was built—who shaped and sanded and painted the balusters and handrail. Had the women or men in their lives taken their hearts, too—in the same way Maricris had taken his—and had they fought with all of their essence to retrieve for themselves that most crucial of human organs? Nacho’s thoughts wander further afield and he considers the state of their balustrade: it is sturdy and well crafted, but it could use a good sanding and a fresh coat of paint. But then Nacho’s initial thought returns. He sighs, finally surrenders, and turns his eyes to his beautiful wife.
“Maricris,” he whispers. “Por favor, give me back my heart. You have had it for 10 years.”
Maricris sits back in the porch swing that Nacho installed for his wife’s 35th birthday five years earlier. Maricris cradles her mug of hot Nescafé—thick with half-and-half and three tablespoons of brown sugar—as if it were a baby chick or hamster or live grenade. And then she spits out an emphatic “No!” with her red lips forming such a perfect that Nacho falls in love all over again. And then
