ABSTRACT

Scraps of folded paper were being tossed by Teresa (fifteen), Ramon (thirteen), and Sally (six) into a lovely off-white ceramic bowl decorated with small enamel hearts in intense colors. It graced the middle of the table where the three children were eating dinner with their parents. Teresa Cabezas and her brother Ramon had just come back to their dad and stepmother's house for one of the five-day spans of time that they lived there each month. Sally, the offspring of Ramon and Teresa's father's second marriage with Ellen (forty-one), lived in the home all the time.