On a road trip, Abuela made a remark I unpacked into my notebook. In Tennessee, she said, English was like dogs barking, but in Kentucky, it was like music. She didn’t speak it, just as she didn’t use the dishwasher, or take an escalator. Maybe English was one dirty plate too many, or a stairway moving too fast for her foot to find purchase. In a gathering of Spanish speakers, someone will ask, “When you hit your thumb with a hammer, do you say shit, or coño?” It’s a test—how Latin are you? Why that matters, I can’t say. Sometimes, the rhythm between two languages will trip you up. Reviewing Civil War homework, my father mispronounced Appomattox. We never let him forget it. “A-POH-ma-tox” became a running joke. And our next-door friend Cal never absorbed much Spanish. He sang “Guantanamera” as “once on a meadow,” loud and proud. My three ghosts dance in a colorful crescendo: Abuela in a floral shift with lace-edged sleeves; my father in a sky-blue guayabera; Cal in a glowing white suit with a blood-red tie. They don’t hang pictures or build bookshelves. You won’t see me with a hammer, either. My husband fixes everything, the way his daddy taught him back in Kentucky. Turns out, I’m a sucker for a guy who sings when he talks.