The movers came Monday morning and in one astonishingly quick hour, the two men quietly hauled 20 or so boxes down the stairs and hoisted them onto the truck, wrapped furniture into brown paper and corrugated cardboard sleeves, and signed the delivery papers, leaving me with a living room full of the remainders, the things we'd decided to sell and give away. A friend came by in the afternoon to buy all the big furniture--two benches, a bed, the dining room table and chairs, a rocker, and assorted items like the espresso maker that he probably has no real use for and that required me explaining how they worked with quick instructions and a saleswoman-like demonstration. The items he claimed halved what remained, but I still had to find a home--and fast--for what was left. Twenty or so gallery picture frames went to a photographer friend. Envelopes, spices, the bedside table, a painting, and all of the plates and cups to our neighbors. I'd planned to take the kitchen stuff, but I'm not as good at packing as Francisco is, and the thought of taking hours to wrap plates in paper and then find them a month from now, broken into pieces only good for a mosaic, made me think I could find a better home for the plates and a better use of my time. I'd sorted everything into neat piles and designated their respective recipients; all that was left was the stack of things I'd take with me on the plane and some of Penelope's dog stuff for which we had no need.

I hate throwing anything useful away, and so I'd hoped I could find someone who might want a half bag of dog food, two dog bowls, and Penelope's window seat cojin, her cushion where she held court for the past two years. I happened upon Fela, a woman who took care of our dogs when we were away, and asked her if she might be interested, as she has her own dogs. She was, and she said she'd come by in the afternoon.

Fela hasn't had too many advantages in life. She's a single mother, she's practically deaf, whenever I try to call her cell phone has been cut off for non-payment, and everytime I happen to see her on the street she has some new tale of woe to share with me--surgery gone wrong, her boyfriend of 20 years sneaking around behind her back, her daughter having trouble at school--those sorts of things. Still, she's happy and she's strong and she's funny, she's reliable and she's kind, and I always tell people--because I'm convinced it's true--that if her life had given her more opportunities, she probably would have been a veterinarian because she has an incredible way with animals. She's also an astute and astonishingly accurate observer of people, and she has more developed and well-defended political beliefs than most other people I'd come to know in Puerto Rico.

She picked up the dog food, the bowls, and the cojin, and asked if she could have the pillows from our bed, which I wasn't planning to take. "Claro," I said, inviting her to poke around and pack up anything else she might want in a box. Twenty minutes later, she'd filled several boxes with odds and ends, had hauled a hand truck up the stairs, and had single-handedly started moving her new possessions from my home to hers. She seemed happy, so I was happy. I was also thrilled to have still less to deal with and dispose of.

The next day, I saw Fela again and asked her if she'd been able to unpack the boxes and set everything up at home. "Ay, si, Julie," she said, smiling. "My daughter slept on el cojincito, and she was so happy. We don't have beds," she explained, so her daughter had snored the night away on the little cushion that was still covered in Penelope's hair. I was floored and wasn't sure whether to feel happy, sad, or something altogether different for which I have no name. In the past few days, Fela and some other friends who are not of our neighbors' or our own social class had commented admiringly that we lived among gente fina in our building. After almost three years there, I had an altogether different opinion, but I knew what they meant. As Fela chattered on happily about how she'd arranged the things I'd given her, I thought about real gente fina. They don't necessarily live in nice buildings or sleep on foam-padded mattresses. They don't always have a "real" job or a constant means of contact. "Real gente fina," I said to Fela as I hugged her good-bye, "eres tu."