I headed for the gate. The children who played nearby stopped and looked at us. And in the other houses, though it was very dark, I knew the farmers and their wives watched me leave, knowing how it was going to be with us, how I would leave Teresita and thus make Father happy, how I would forget everything — the orchids I gave her that now adorned her window and that, I am sure, would someday wither, the books I lent her, which she rapaciously read, the eager laughter that welled from the depths of her. I would forget, too, how we hummed to the music of the town’s brass band and walked one sultry night from the high school to Carmay.