“She is,” Uncle Jorge answers with a nod. “She’s gonna be excited when she sees those,” he adds, pointing at the balloons.

“I hope she likes the flan I made for her,” Amy says, and I lift my eyebrows.

“You made flan?”

She nods. “I got the recipe from your mom. I’m not sure it turned out how it was supposed to, but… I guess we’ll find out when we try it.”

I stare blankly at her. Since my parents left the country, Amy has been awfully quiet around me and Sophie—she’s stopped asking us if we’re okay, if we’re hungry, if we need a change of bedsheets or fresh towels. I’m starting to worry that she sees us as a huge inconvenience, but then she’ll turn around and do something nice like this. I just wish I understood what’s actually going through her mind.

“Oh, there she is!” Uncle Jorge says suddenly. “Happy birthday, princess!”

He lifts Sophie off her feet, spins her around, and puts her back down. Then my sister turns toward me, still giggling a little.

“Happy birthday, Sophie.”

Her eyes widen as she stares at the balloons. “Whoa.”

“Do you like them?”

“I love them!”

She runs into my arms, and I give her a hug. She lingers a little longer than she needs to, with her arms wrapped tight around me.

“I also got you a present,” I say. “Wait here.”

I run off into the bedroom and yank open the closet door. I reach into the far corner, where I hid Sophie’s present earlier this week, and then I rush back to the kitchen.

“Here,” I say.

She takes the pink bag from me and peeks inside. “What’s this?” she asks, pulling out a small box.

“A nail polish set,” I say. It’s not much, but it’s what I could do with the money I had left in my savings. And since she was so excited when her friend Leslie got one last spring, I figured she might like to have her own set.

She stares down at it with disbelief, as though it’s the most precious thing she’s ever seen. For a second, I see a glimpse of the girl she used to be before this whole mess started—the one who found happiness in the smallest of things. And as she takes each nail polish out of the box and starts arranging them in the order in which she wants to try them out, I feel warmth inside my chest that I haven’t felt in a while.

“Are you ready to eat breakfast?” Amy asks, and Sophie nods quickly.

We’ve barely sat down at the kitchen table, however, when my phone starts ringing. I wiggle it out of my pocket, and just as I thought, I see Ma’s name on the screen.