She leads the way out into the hallway, and with a deep breath that makes me feel as though I’ve stolen all the air around us, I follow her and close the door of our apartment for the final time.

“¿Bueno? ¿Bueno? Mateo, ¿me escuchas?”

“Yes, Ma. I can hear you.”

“Wait, now I think I can’t hear you.” She turns away from the camera. “Ernesto! Ernesto, is this thing set up properly? I see Mateo’s mouth moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

Pa comes into the picture and puts the camera a little too close to his face. This happens every other day—either they can’t hear us, or we can’t hear them, or the image quality is terrible, or there’s some other glitch with their Wi-Fi.

“There. The volume was turned all the way down,” Pa says. “Mateo, try saying something now.”

“Hey.”

“Mijo.” Ma sighs. She does this all the time—she sighs as though she hasn’t spoken to us in years. I try to make it a little less obvious, but I usually let out long breaths as well, allowing all the sadness and longing that have been piling up in my chest to leave my body. Even though not a single day has gone by that we haven’t talked since they went back to Mexico, I feel a little farther away from them every time we chat. “Where’s Sophie?”

“I’m here, Ma.”

“Mija.” Ma sighs again. “How are you?”

Sophie’s answer isn’t very different from yesterday, or the day before. She tells Ma and Pa that she’s good, that she misses them. She’s been spending a lot of time with her friend Leslie lately, so she tells them about her day and how Leslie’s mom took them to the playground in Central Park.

“And you, Mateo? How are you?” Ma asks me after Sophie is done speaking.

“I’m good, Ma.” I don’t have much to say, either—at least not anything that they didn’t hear yesterday. “I’ve just been spending a lot of time at the bodega. It’s busy as ever.”

“Have you seen Adam and Kimmie? I feel like you haven’t mentioned them lately.”