When you get too involved, Part 3:

I couldn’t stop thinking about May-ug and I wondered if she moved home or not. Adam and I saw her the day after her fight with Lola and asked her what had happened.

“I’m not going home,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

She shook her head and looked at Adam and smiled. She didn’t like to say things in front of him for some reason. He got the hint and left the two of us alone.

“Lola apologized,” May-ug said to me once she was sure Adam had gone.

“So you are going to stay?” I asked. She nodded her head. Personally, I was glad, I liked having her next door. But I also wanted her freedom too.

“Are you still going to try and leave over the summer?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I have to wait and see what Auntie Lourdes says,” she said.

“Have you asked her?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Why don’t you have your parents ask for you?”

“Because they are too busy.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t talk to Auntie Lourdes about what happened, okay?” she asked.

“Why not?”

“Because she will not say anything anyway. She will just be quiet.”

I thought about this. Lola is Auntie Lourdes’ mother-in-law and she might not feel comfortable asking her to change her ways. At the same time, Auntie Lourdes would really want May-ug to stay—no one else could cook and clean like her; she was a huge benefit to the household. But at this point, there was nothing else Adam and I could do. We had to respect May-ug’s wishes.

Later that day Adam and I went to the market. We saw Lola on a staircase above us and waved. We all acted as if nothing had happened.

“Would you like anything at the market?” We asked.

She smiled—benign and sweet as usual. “Anything you get would be nice,” she said.

We exchanged a few more words and walked off. Pretend nothing happened. That’s what you do around here.

“Lola can be so sweet,” I said.

“Yeah, too bad she’s also a slave master,” Adam said under his breath.

We laughed. Sometimes that’s the only way to deal with these kinds of things.