Cleofilas, the third-person narrator, dreams of a pure romantic love and thinks as a young woman that she’s found it in Juan Pedro, the man who gets her father’s permission to marry her and take her across the border to live in Texas. They live in a small, rented house and Cleofilas is full of hope and romance, optimistic that things will play out like they do regularly in her favorite telenovelas. She has little company besides the laundromat owner, who yells at her regularly in Spanish, the only language Cleofilas understands, and her two elderly, widowed neighbors, Dolores and Soledad. Lonely but hopeful, she watches her shows and wonders often about the origin of the name of the arroyo on the edge of town, “Woman Hollering Creek.” Why is it called that, she asks? No one can give her an answer. No one is even interested in the question.

After Cleofilas gives birth to her first child, Juan Pedrito, her life begins to slowly change. Her husband is away from home more and more often. When he is home, he is often sullen or angry, easily set off by a simple request to make a repair around the house or give her some money.