That night, after Izabel put Cami to bed, Kaito got called back to work in his machine. Izabel lay in bed alone and watched another old show about real estate. This family, like all the families, said their yard was a priority. They evaluated it based on the shade it provided. The fence. They asked if their dog would be happy there.

Izabel remembered asking her mother for a dog almost every day for a year, until one day her mother yelled at her, “It isn’t going to happen!” And Izabel wasn’t sure why that had done it over everything else, but she never asked for a dog again. Maybe she knew what the truth sounded like.

Cami didn’t ask for a pet like Izabel had. She saw pictures of dogs and cats, saw them in books on her tablet. At the mall, there was a small indoor “zoo,” which was more like a business, trying to breed animals and bring them back as pets. They saw a litter of rabbits once.

“Wow,” Cami said, and then she walked away.

“That’s it?” Izabel asked. “You don’t want to really look at them.”

“I looked at them,” Cami said indignantly.

“You’re right,” Izabel said. “You did.”

The real estate show finished, and Kaito was still working. She heard nothing from his office—the machine doing its work quietly behind the door. Izabel switched to an episode of The Millionaire Matchmaker, one she’d already started at some point. She was at the part of the episode where Patti was screening women for her millionaire, three at a time. Patti was looking for career women, for women who wanted children, for women who were okay with dating a Black man. Patti was telling a woman to “step it up” for the mixer.

And then Izabel heard Cami thrashing around in her bed.

Izabel put the tablet down and rushed into Cami’s room.

“You’re okay. It’s okay,” Izabel said, placing a hand on Cami’s chest.

Cami started to cry.

“What is it, honey? What is it?”

Cami opened her eyes. “I asked why I can’t touch any of them.”

“What?”

“They showed me why.”

“Why what?”

“Mommy!” Cami stood up and hugged Izabel around her neck.

“It’s okay. Lie back down. I’ll lie down with you. Would that be good?”

Cami nodded.

“It’s okay.” She kissed Cami on the forehead.

After Cami was back to sleep, Izabel couldn’t go back to watching, to seeing if Patti had made a match. She decided to take a shower.

For Izabel’s birthday, Kaito had their shower floor tiled. And she did delight in it, the tiny squares alternating in texture and color. A shining green showed through slick glass. A textured opaque olive green that sparkled silver in places.