His wife, Sima, is a pharmacist with henna on her nails. The orange dye has faded from her palms, but Lara knows it must have been there a few weeks ago. She has memories of afternoons with her mother and sisters, sitting on the carpet grasping thick, cool handfuls of henna and scraping it off later, after it had dried. She’d hated the smell, but today she feels an unexpected nostalgia. Jimmy and Sima’s house smells like onions in the pan and something else Lara can’t place. Coming out of the kitchen, Sima asks Emma if she’s hungry.

“Not really.”

“She could stay home alone, but I don’t like the idea of it,” Lara says. “At night.”

“I could have slept over at Jennifer’s. But you wouldn’t let me.”

“Our children are grown,” Jimmy says. “We’ll let her watch something on TV.”

“We’ll play UNO,” Sima says. “Or do you want Scrabble?”

“I guess,” Emma says.

Lara meets Chris at a roadside bar near town. When he kisses her on the cheek, the smell of that aftershave defeats the beery, smoky atmosphere and any hope she has harbored of not wanting him. It’s the first time she’s ever left Emma, outside of school or work hours, and the fear of what might happen while she’s gone sits on her shoulder whispering into her ear. It’s always there, the fear, urging her to move on rather than be found. But it’s louder tonight, bolder, than it has been in at least six months. She’s never had anyone she trusted to watch her daughter, never left Emma at other kids’ houses. Her fingers drum against the menu; Chris thinks she’s nervous about the date. She can tell by the way he asks what she wants and offers her a beer.

“I don’t drink,” she says, and regrets it. She’s never met an American who didn’t drink.

“You a Mormon or a Lutheran?” Chris says.

“I don’t think so.”

“I like your sense of humor. I’ll drink for both of us.”

They order wings that burn her fingertips, and he says how impressed he is with a woman willing to eat with her fingers.

Should she worry that she’s revealed something, about who she is and where she’s from? She picks up a fork and knife, wanting to prove she knows how to use them.

For the first time in her life, here is someone she wishes she could tell everything.