“This is where you’ll live,” Jorge said to me when we went down to the basement, and I could see it right away—I could picture myself waking up there every day, and having Kimmie and Adam over on weekends, and pacing around my big room while I study for the SAT.

“All right,” Pa says, bringing me back to the present. “I bought your sister’s ticket.”

Just like that, the clock starts ticking. Ten days—that’s all the time we have left together before Sophie flies to Mexico to join Ma and Pa.

I try my best to enjoy it, all too aware that it might be a while before I see my sister again. I help Jorge and Erika clean out the bodega, and I try to keep my voice steady whenever someone we know walks in and I have to explain why we have to close down. I take Sophie to all her favorite parks in the city—Central Park, and Washington Square Park, and Bryant Park. I buy her ice cream, and milkshakes, and anything she wants, because I just can’t find a way to say no to her right now.

“Come with us,” she says to me one night, after we’ve turned off the lights and the room is filled with the soft sounds of the street outside. “Please, Mateo.”

With a knot in my throat, I reach for her hand. “I can’t, Sophie,” I say. “Not right now. But just think about the future. Think of what your life is gonna be like in Mexico—all the new places you’re gonna see, all the friends you’re gonna make. And maybe, in a few years, Ma and Pa will be allowed to come back to the US. Maybe we can all be together again.”

She squeezes my hand, not saying anything. I wish I had something else to offer her—something other than hope for a future we can’t even imagine right now. But before I can think of anything else to say, her hand becomes loose in mine, and her breathing becomes soft and slow as she drifts off into sleep.

The day before Sophie’s flight, we’re all feeling a little antsy. Packing her things took less time than we expected, and now that her bags are ready and waiting by the door, there’s not much left for us to do.

“I have an idea,” I say to her, and she turns sharply toward me. “Let’s go to the beach.”