“My grandma doesn’t really speak English,” Ana says. “You’re missing out, though. She’s really funny.”

Ana’s grandma pulls out a chair for me. I smile at her and sit down, wishing I hadn’t taken French as my language requirement. Ana sits beside me, her face set in a serious expression that contrasts with her mom’s and grandma’s easy smiles. So far, Ana’s family couldn’t be less like her in terms of mannerisms.

“Hija,” Mrs. Álvarez says, reaching over to stroke Ana’s shoulder. “Hazme un favor. Llama al plomero, por favor.”

“Le llamo mañana,” Ana says quietly. She says something else, but I can’t hear it because Xiomara and Isabel have started a new game of Magic Marbles and are approaching banshee level with their shrieking.

Once I finish eating, Ana leads me into the hallway behind the living room. I follow her into a small room with vibrant pink walls. The room is split down the middle into two different decorating schemes. On one side, the colors are plain and sensible—black, white, and navy—and there’s a massive poster of a Black ballerina hanging on the wall beside the bed. I know this has to be Ana’s side of the room even before she drops her bags at the foot of the bed.

The other half of the room is all pinks and purples. Piles of faded stuffed animals are everywhere, and a poster of Einstein dominates the wall, surrounded by printed pictures of constellations and rocket launches. On the floor, almost hidden in a pile of pink and purple pillows, a little girl is reading. She scrunches her brow as she flips a page, her face a tiny mirror of Ana’s.

“That’s my sister Caro,” Ana says. Caro’s dark eyes dart toward me briefly before settling back on her book. “She’s shy,” Ana mouths.

I nod. “So your grandma lives here too?”

“Yeah,” Ana says, amusement flickering briefly over her face. “She moved in temporarily to help when Caro was born. That was seven years ago.”

So counting Ana, her four sisters, her parents, and her grandma, there are eight people living in this house. But I only saw four doors on this hallway, and one of them was the bathroom. “I better learn some Spanish so I can talk to your grandma,” I say, dropping my backpack by the door. “Don’t want to miss out on what she’s saying if she’s so hilarious.”

Ana’s lips curl into her most genuine smile, the one that makes her eyes scrunch up until they’re just lines of long, dark eyelashes. “Yeah, you’d better,” she says. “She’ll really like you. Just don’t bring up any of those ‘Jesus was just a wizard’ conspiracy theories, okay?”

I snort. “Literally why would I do that?”