Alejo grows increasingly sick, and Petra offers to take him in. Perfecto protests, worried about the cost and pointing out that Petra has health problems of her own. Petra, however, is adamant: “If we don’t take care of each other, who would take care of us?” (96). Accordingly, Gumecindo and Perfecto bring Alejo to the bungalow, where Petra tends to him with different folk remedies. Alejo is comforted, and wakes later that night to find Estrella sleeping next to him.

Meanwhile, Perfecto worries about troubling dreams he’s had of Mercedes, of his stillborn child, and of Petra pregnant. He works on the station wagon and hopes that the money he earns tearing down the barn will allow him to replace the battery.

In a flashback, Petra and her children approach a store, with her boys, to Petra’s annoyance, lagging behind. She doesn’t take any of the children but Estrella inside, and she thinks carefully before deciding what she can afford. Finally, she approaches a display of garlic; she uses garlic to ease her leg pain. While choosing the freshest bulbs, Petra knocks a few to the ground, but a man who is in the store fixing its freezer picks them up for her.