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sending him back to Mexico. Can you help him?”
    “Honey, there’s nothing I can do. Esteban’s a tough kid, he’ll be all right. They’ll bus him down to Matamoros, he’ll cross back over the next day, and he’ll be back up here in a few weeks, just like the last time.”
    “Yeah, that’s what he said.”
    “So why’s Consuela so upset?”
    “She’s scared they’re gonna come for her, send her back to Mexico, too. She says she has no one in Mexico, that this is the only home she’s ever had.”
    Consuela had come with the house. When the prior owner had filed bankruptcy and could no longer afford the mansion or his Mexican maid, the Fenney family had acquired Consuela de la Rosa like an appurtenance to the property.
    “A. Scott, I told her you were fixing things so she can always live with us…you are, aren’t you?”
    “Uh, yeah, I’m working on that.” He’d been meaning to hire an immigration lawyer to get Consuela’s green card. “Look, tell her not to worry. INS knows better than to conduct raids in Highland Park. Heads would roll.”
    “Huh?”
    “They’d get fired if they took Highland Park maids away.”
    “Oh. But she’s really scared. She shut the front drapes, she won’t even go outside in the backyard, and she’s saying the rosary. It’s just us here and…well, it’s kind of scaring me, too. No one’s gonna come to our house, are they, and bust in the door like on TV?”
    “No, baby, no one’s coming to our house.”
    “You promise?”
    “I promise. Let me talk to her.”
    Consuela was an emotional girl, given to sudden bouts of tears over fears real or imagined, which she warded off by wearing three crucifixes, saying daily prayers to various saints, and keeping enough candles lit on the windowsill above the kitchen sink to light a convenience store. But the fear that never left her was being sent back to Mexico. Esteban was her boyfriend; they had met at the Catholic church in the Little Mexico section of Dallas. Scott drove her over every Sunday morning and picked her up every Sunday afternoon, their weekly visit. Esteban worked construction in other parts of Dallas and faced the risk of INS raids, but Consuela was protected by the unwritten rule that the INS did not enter the Town of Highland Park, home to the richest and most politically powerful men in Texas—and their illegal Mexican maids. Scott’s illegal Mexican maid was as sweet as she was round, and after three years of tending to the Fenney household, she was like a member of the family, albeit one who reverted to her native tongue when distraught. Consuela’s sobbing voice came over the line.
    “Señor Fenney, tengo miedo de inmigración.”
    “Don’t be afraid, Consuela. It’s okay.
Está bien
. No one’s gonna take you away. You’ll always live with us.”
    Scott had picked up some Spanish skills from his Mexican maid, who sniffled and said,
“¿Para siempre?”
    “Yes. Forever.”
    “Señor Fenney, you make the, uh…
promesa a
Consuela?”
    “
Sí
, Consuela, I promise.”
    A sniffle. “O-kay.
Adiós, señor.
”
    His daughter came back on. “She stopped crying.”
    “Good.”
    “A. Scott, you’re not gonna let them take her away, are you?”
    “No, baby, that won’t happen.”
    “Okay.”
    “Look, honey, I’m kind of busy, so if everything’s under control there, I need to get back to work.”
    “We’re good. See you later, alligator.”
    “After while, crocodile.”
    Scott hung up and made a mental note to call Rudy Gutierrez, an immigration lawyer he had met years ago. He’d been meaning to do that for six months now, or maybe a year, almost two come to think of it, but something had always come up and…the blinking light on the phone caught Scott’s eye and he remembered Frank Turner holding—not that Scott minded making a plaintiffs’ lawyer wait for his contingency fee. The image of his daughter huddled behind closed drapes in their Highland Park home with their Mexican