Marcía Cruz, who goes by Marci, is an 11-year-old girl living in San Lorenzo, California. Every night, she prays for God to make her father disappear. She does not ask God to kill her father because she believes a sin would prevent her from getting a second prayer. Instead, she hopes her father will run away with another woman.

Delia, Marci’s mother, married Eddie, Marci’s father, within two weeks of meeting him, and she is now a stay-at-home mother who “acts like she’s afraid to see anything for herself” (3). She is subservient to Eddie unless he’s looking at other women. She rebels by asking her aunt, Leti, to dye her hair.

Corin, Marci’s younger sister, acts unpredictably and sometimes causes Eddie to get violent. Marci compares Eddie to Leti’s dog, because he “walks around listening and looking for […] something that will probably make him mad” (4). Because smoking calms her father, Marci leaves cigarettes around the house for Eddie. When Delia finds one and mistakes it for an evil eye, she asks Leti to get rid of it with candles and herbs.