I make several rapid nods. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and the image freezes in my mind: I look skinnier than I realized—almost bony—and my back is curved forward like a wishbone. My eyes jerk away. I wonder what I will look like—if I do not change the way I am—as an old man. In some ways, maybe, I already look it. I find myself staring down the counter and realize my mother has gone.

You got no business speaking for strangers and making unwarranted accusations, the girl says.

On the countertop, my fingers look pale and strange in the fluorescent light. The knuckles bitten and bony. The woman gives the girl an angry look and she bites her blue lip and walks away.

IV

I find my mother outside, just a few feet down from the storefront glass, where she cannot be seen, against the Dairy Store’s brick wall. The sun warms the wall and glints off the gold-screened windows high above us, and Mom has found a slender shadow of an infant tree. She is always finding shade so her skin will not get darker. As we return to the car, she clutches at her purse strap, shifting it to a more comfortable position.

In the parked car she is quiet and I do not say anything, my hands cupped in my lap, and we sit in the still car, hoods popping and clicking around us. She has her key chain in her hand with the little black leather shoe the tow truck guy gave her. She does not make a movement to start the car and it seems like she wants to say something. Finally she inserts the key, then hesitates again, but gives up and starts the car.

She glances at me on Twentieth. Beneath us passes silvery asphalt whose cracks are patched up with dripped trails of black tar. The tall palm trees are so emaciated they cast thin shadows that dissolve on the street.

Do you want some frozen yogurt? she suddenly says.

I look at her.

I thought we were eating with Aunt Jessica.

We have time.

Wouldn’t it spoil our appetite?

My mother has always insisted we be hungry at the meals other people buy for us, usually Aunt Jessica or my Tita Dina.

You can have an appetizer.

I shrug.

Sure.

We don’t have to if you don’t want to, Gabe, she says, sounding hurt. She has not looked at me but just peers over the steering wheel. She eases to a stop sign, and waits for a yellow Volkswagen Bug to pass. She used to own one when she first came to America, back when she was an emergency room receptionist and worked with some Filipino girls who all hoped to become American. They envied her her American husband, and I think most of them have married and stayed. She knows how much I love chocolate sundaes.