Although Taylor is attracted to Estevan, she respects his marriage to Esperanza and treats him as a friend. During the night, as she sits on the couch with Estevan, Turtle, and the cat, Taylor is reminded of the paper dolls she'd played with as a child — the Family of Dolls. The Family of Dolls was the "perfect" family. It crosses Taylor's mind that they could have been the Family of Dolls in a different life. The tone is sad because she realizes that a Family of Dolls is not within her reach: She knows too much about the world around her. Here, in these chapters, Taylor discovers a new awareness within herself. There is no such thing as a "perfect" family; the families that she's been part of — first with her mother and now with an extended, nontraditional family — might not be picture-perfect, but they provide the emotional support that she needs to live a successful life.
When Taylor goes to see Esperanza in the room above Mattie's, she is unsure of how to console Esperanza. She talks about Turtle and Turtle's capacity for understanding even though she appears to be in her own little world. Importantly, she also tells Esperanza that she knows about Ismene. Taylor's character has become more complex as she has gained awareness of the atrocities that occur in the world around her. Discussing how hard it is to lose a loved one, she intuitively says to Esperanza, "Some people never have anybody to lose, and . . . that's got to be so much worse."
Taylor's new perceptions of the world also include the people immediately around her. For example, she discovers that Edna Poppy is blind and has been for years, which is why Edna always dresses in red — Edna never has to worry about her clothes matching — and why it appears that Edna always looks over the top of the head of the person she talks to. Edna has learned that, to survive, she must depend on other people. She depends on Virgie Mae daily, and she depends on Taylor to tell her what she is buying in Lee Sing's market. By recognizing that she cannot survive alone, she has rendered her disability unnoticeable.
