THE street cats screech to signal Miguel’s arrival home half an hour past midnight. Not his latest appearance, but still unacceptable.

My younger son Paulo sits next to me on the living room sofa, poring over a science textbook with half-shut eyes. It had been a busy day for him. Once he came home from school, he dashed to the garage to do the laundry. On a normal night, the ten-year-old boy gets to sleep at ten on the dot. But Paulo knows that none of us can go to bed without saying our nightly rosary.