Cami said, “I want to go home.”

“You don’t even want to try?” Izabel said.

“Mom! I want to go home!”

Izabel snapped at her—“Is that how you want to say it?!” And she was surprised she would talk to Cami like that, so soon after fearing she’d never see her awake again.

“No, Mommy,” Cami said.

“Okay, okay,” Izabel said, collecting herself, righting herself. “Let’s go home.”

It was so early in the morning that the car that came for them was clean of pollen. It must have come straight from the porting station. When the green light came on inside, they pushed their masks down around their necks. Izabel looked out the window at their small town and the dense forest behind it, the old city mixed into the trees, buildings overrun with vines and blooming wildly in the sunlight.

Cami was starting to seem like herself again. She asked if she would be going to school that day.

“No,” Izabel said, “not today. We’ll play at home today.”

“Yay!” Cami said.

Izabel smiled at her.

“Can Dad play with us?”

“He can if he wants to.”

“I’ll play with you a little bit, but I have to work today.”

“Yay!” Cami said again. “I want to play a three-person game. One-two-three.” She touched each of them with her finger. Then she twisted her head around to look out of the back of the car and began waving.

“What are you waving at?” Izabel said.

“That tree!” she said.

Izabel saw all the trees near the north edge of town and didn’t bother asking which one.

Cami sat back down in her seat, pleased with herself, and as the car pulled up to their house, Izabel watched Cami pull her mask up, over her mouth, without any prompting. Child of this world, she knew what to do.

It only took a few hours for Izabel to regret not taking Cami to school. Izabel put together five snacks—graham crackers in one small bowl, cheese crackers in another, blueberries, a cut-up banana, chocolate chips—and put them all in front of Cami so Izabel could stop getting up and down, up and down, at Cami’s every whim.

Cami watched a show on the television, and Izabel watched an old show on her tablet. An episode of Property Brothers. The brothers walked a family out into a backyard with a pool and a covered patio with a grill. Wow, the family said. This is amazing. This is better than the inside. They showed another few shots of the backyard from different angles.

“Obake blueberry!” Cami yelled out, holding a giant blueberry in front of Izabel’s face.

“Not so close, Cami.”

Cami took her arm back, still waiting for Izabel’s response.

“Yeah, that’s really big!” Izabel said.

Cami popped it into her mouth and went back to her show.