"She no like brecol," Consuela said.

"Don't believe I'd like broccoli for breakfast either."

The fifteen-month-old child smiled at Scott as if she understood what he had said. He scrunched up his face and rubbed noses with her-she liked that-and said, "You don't want that yucky broccoli, do you? Tell your madre you want huevos rancheros and chorizo so you can grow big and strong and get a futbol scholarship."

Her parents were Mexican nationals but she was an American citizen-born in the USA. She raised her arms to him.

"Oh, Uncle Scotty can't play now, honey. I've got to go to work."

He gave the child a kiss on her forehead and a little hug and came away with slimy green broccoli on his cheek. It smelled awful-or maybe it was him. He swiped a sweaty sleeve across his cheek then grabbed a bottled water out of the refrigerator and walked down the hall to his daughters' bedroom. He knocked on the door.

"Come on, girls, I can't be late today. Closing arguments."

The door opened, and his eleven-year-old daughters emerged from a small bedroom cluttered with posters of the Jonas Brothers and a smiling Michael Jordan on the walls, books stacked on shelves and scattered about the floor, clothes hanging over chairs as if one of them-guess who? — could not decide what to wear that day, and a small television with rabbit ears. They had pushed their twin beds together in one corner so they could read together at night. They shared clothes, they brushed each other's hair, they were like sisters-and now the law said they were.

Barbara Boo Fenney was wearing jean shorts, a black T-shirt with white print that read "Obama Ba-Rocks My World," green retro sneakers without socks, and her red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked more like her mother every day, albeit less expensively dressed. Pajamae Jones-Fenney wore a color-coordinated short outfit, matching socks folded down neatly, and black-and-white saddle Oxfords.