Then Esperanza describes two married women she knows — Mamacita, who is very fat, very homesick, and cannot speak English, and Rafaela, who is young and beautiful, and whose husband locks her in their apartment while he goes out to play dominoes with his friends. Sally, who is about Esperanza's age, makes herself attractive to boys and young men but is mistreated by her father, who is afraid she will run away with some boy or young man. And Minerva (who also writes poems), not much older than Esperanza, has two little children and a husband who leaves her sometimes but then comes back and beats her.
When she has a house, Esperanza says, it will be a big, fine one, and she will let "bums" stay upstairs in the attic. She has decided to be independent, like a man. Her mother tells her that she herself quit school because she was ashamed of her clothes.
Sally's father beats her so badly that her mother allows her to come and stay with Esperanza's family, but he comes to get her, begs her to come home with him, and then beats her worse. Esperanza and Sally go to play in an overgrown and deserted garden, but Sally would rather hang out with the boys, and Esperanza embarrasses herself by trying to protect Sally, who doesn't want to be protected. The two girls go to a carnival, and Sally leaves with a boy; Esperanza, waiting for her to return, is overpowered by several strangers and sexually assaulted by one of them.
Now Sally has married a young man she met at a school function, and he makes her stay in their house and won't let her friends visit. Lucy and Rachel's youngest sister, an infant, dies; at their house, Esperanza meets her friends' three aunts (or, most likely, great aunts), who draw her aside and tell her she is special. When she leaves Mango Street, they say, she must not neglect to come back for those who can't leave. Her friend Alicia echoes this advice when they talk on Edna's steps. And, at last, Esperanza says that she will have a house of her own, she will someday leave Mango Street — and, sometimes, writing about it helps her make it leave her — but she will come back for the others.
