You would spend hours playing soccer with your sister, Antonio’s mother says, or you would combine your toys so that your helicopters would fly over her dollhouse and her Barbies would sunbathe inside your Star Wars station, and you would do earthquake, remember?, no, Antonio says, I don’t remember, when you were done playing with Barbies, Antonio’s mother says, because your sister would dress them, pick hats and purses for them, parade them, allow them to ride in your helicopters, the two of you would spend hours playing with your toys, and all of a sudden, perhaps because you were tired, you would do earthquake and the dollhouse would fly out in pieces and your sister would run out and say Mom my brother did earthquake on my house, so that would be the end of your games for the day, but other than that the two of you got along very well, playing soccer or hide-and-seek in our patio since we couldn’t leave that house in Mirandela because your father would lock it before going to work, eventually he handed me a key after I protested so much, although I couldn’t leave the house just the same because he would call every fifteen minutes, and if I didn’t answer the phone, he would imagine I wasn’t home and that would turn into a terrible altercation, so you would arrive home from school and we would spend our time playing together, and because you wanted to play soccer we spent a lot of time in the patio, and you would climb on the fence, standing on the ledge of the cement wall below and attaching yourself to the wire mesh above, and from up there you would chat with Don Jorge, the elderly man next door who would always say to me Leonora, if anything happens, because he would hear your father screaming and threatening us, if he lays a finger on you or something happens, you shout for us and I’ll come out immediately, Don Jorge would say, and I have a gun, and one day he said to your father we’re here, next door to you, and we’ve been listening to your screaming, you know I am armed and all I have to do is jump over the fence and bring my sons with me, who were huge, by the way, you want to act macho with your wife, you’re going to have to act macho with us, in any case you would tread along the fence and call out Don Jorge, Don Jorge, and that dear old man would trudge toward our fence, because he was quite old already, approaching you with chocolates in hand, Don Jorge don’t give him chocolate or he won’t eat his dinner, I would say, ay Leonora just one piece of chocolate, or he would bring you candy, the chewy kind, toffees, I think, and because he was so nice I would say fine, Toñio, eat the candy, those were the days when it occurred to you to sell water for dogs you probably don’t remember that, no, Antonio says, I remember I would put leaves in empty cologne bottles, and you would say water for dogs, Antonio’s mother says, here the water for dogs, and so the neighbors would stroll by and ask what’s in that water, ah, it’s a special, magical water to cure street dogs from their sickness, you would say, because there was a lot of street dogs in that neighborhood I don’t know if you remember they were all over the streets, dirty and beaten up, we had La Pelusa and La Cuca, I mean La Perla, our unruly street dog, and so it was so funny to see you selling water for dogs, trying to because you never sold a bottle so you would give them away at the end, and so people would tell you okay, can you give me one bottle for the street dogs over there, if you’re going to give it to them yes, otherwise you have to pay me, yes, it’s for the street dogs over there who are thirsty, and so I would bring out a bowl and we would fill it out with your water for dogs, and so it was this great adventure for you to climb on the fence and hand them the bowl with water for dogs, yes, you and your sister got along very well, playing soccer or hide-and-seek in the patio in that house in Mirandela, that long stretch of patio that culminated in a dilapidated house next to ours, which had a window with what looked like prison bars from where a boy with Down syndrome would watch the two of you play, a boy who must have been eighteen whereas you two were around six or seven at the time, and because I was worried he might say something improper, I was always nearby when he was by his window, shouting out of excitement as he watched the two of you play, and sometimes you would get scared and ask me why does he shout, Mom, and I would say because he’s stirred by your games, because he can’t play, because he’s trapped in that house by himself, why does he have those eyes, Mom, that face, because he was born with a problem and he’s always going to be like that, oh so he’s sick, you would say, no he isn’t sick he just doesn’t have a long life ahead of him, but after the three of us finally escaped from that house in Mirandela, Antonio’s mother says, I never heard what happened to that boy again.