When my phone pinged the next morning, waking me up, a jolt of excitement surged through me, thinking—hoping—it was Shanti. I hadn’t wanted anything to do with her or anyone just a few hours before, but now… I didn’t know what I wanted. The way my heart jumped at the possibility of seeing her name on my screen told me whatever I did want included her, though.

I’d been disappointed when the message was from Fee, but when the text had said their mum “now needs her furniture moved around, apparently,” and Fee had promised “the best brown mama lunch you’ve ever had as payment,” a warmth crept into my chest and I’d texted back that I’d be there in an hour.

As I was leaving, Priam and Vicki had poked their heads out from the living room and asked how I was feeling. Instead of trying to articulate all the emotions I was experiencing, I just hugged them both, thanked them for the chat the night before, and promised them I’d be home before curfew. For once, they’d been speechless.

And now here I was, hugging yet another person in the span of an hour. What in the world was happening to me?

Once Fee finally let me go, they invited me into their mum’s home, and Dotty appeared from nowhere to yank me into another embrace. Whereas Fee’s hug had been tight and bone-crushing, Dotty’s was cushiony and soothing. She smelled like oranges and cloves.

She held me at her short arm’s length and considered my face closely. “You look tired, my girl,” she said. “How will you move my furniture with those droopy eyelids?” She was smiling.

Smiling back down at her, I replied, “I’ll manage, don’t worry. I need some hard labor anyway.”

“Wonderful”—except it sounded like vunderful and my heart twinged—“I’ll get to making us some lunch. You’ve never had rotlis like my rotlis, Daya. You better work up your appetite!” Her bun wobbled back and forth as her head did the same, and I had an urge to hug her again.

Before I could, though, Fee put their arm around my shoulders and guided me away. “Come on, punk. Let’s go earn our rotlis.”

We worked quietly for a bit, lifting and adjusting some of the heaviest furniture known to humankind, and I wondered if Dotty really had needed this task completed today, or if Fee had devised it as a plan to get me out of my head. Either way, I was glad to be here, with them, sweating, and smelling brown food wafting down the hallway.

After we’d managed to guide a particularly unwieldy chest of drawers down a narrow staircase into the basement, Fee leaned against one end of it to catch their breath.