I saw this story about a suspicious fire that swept through a Bensonhurst tenement building killing five people on the local TV news last night and was very moved. Here is an excerpt from the story in today’s New York Times:

In Brooklyn, a Guatemalan immigrant grieved for his wife, killed after their tenement apartment burst into flames as they slept. His eyes red from sobbing, his hand stitched and bandaged beneath a new black funeral suit, the man could do no more than console his toddler son while waiting to see if his infant daughter would live.

Back home in the mountains of western Guatemala, three sisters who had heard about the fire on Saturday steeled themselves for the worst. By late Sunday, the worst seemed all but certain: Their three husbands, who had made their way to America together last year in search of work, all appeared to have perished in the same Brooklyn blaze.