“It’s okay,” Pa says. “Smaller than the last one, but at least we have our own bathroom here.”

“And you, Ma? Are you still having trouble sleeping?”

“It’s getting better now,” she answers. For the first couple of weeks, she was unable to get any sleep at all. I think it might’ve had something to do with the fact that she was thinking about Sophie and me being far away, but she says it was the silence of the streets in Puebla that wouldn’t let her sleep. She’d become too used to the sounds of the city outside the window—to all the voices and the cars on Avenue A.

“That’s good,” I say. No matter how hard I try to stop it, the same sadness comes flooding my stomach every time I talk to Ma and Pa. Sometimes it happens right when I answer the phone. Other times, like tonight, it waits just under the surface until it finally breaks free and spreads to every inch of my body.

I hate this, I think to myself as I try to hold in the tears that are threatening to fall from my eyes. I just wish I could speak up. Maybe telling my family about this deep, dark feeling of sadness would help make it go away, but what’s the point of talking about these things, anyway? There’s nothing we can do. Ma and Pa can’t come back. They have to build new lives in Mexico, and Sophie and I have to rebuild our lives here, and the sooner we get used to that idea, the better.

At least Ma and Pa are together now. They’re no longer in detention, and we get to talk to them way more often than before. Every night, I repeat this to myself, trying to find a bit of comfort, and it works most of the time.

The problem is, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep telling myself these things. Maybe they’re good enough to calm me down for now, but will they be enough in a week? In a month? In a year? And, most importantly, will they ever be enough for my sister? Will Sophie ever get used to life without Ma and Pa? Will she ever stop asking me if I’ve figured out a way to bring them back yet?

“What else is new, mijos?” Pa asks suddenly. This happens often, too. We run out of things to talk about. It’s hard now to look back on a few months ago, when we would sit around the dinner table and find it impossible to stop interrupting each other because there were too many things to say.

“Not much, Pa,” I say. “What’s new with you?”