“What have they told you?” I ask, at the same time that Sophie says, “Are you coming home?”

“I want to hear about you,” Ma answers, ignoring our questions, because this is what she always does. She doesn’t like to talk about sad or difficult stuff. She likes to focus on the good things.

“How is staying at Uncle Jorge’s?” she asks us. From her tone, you would think that we’re staying at our uncle’s place for a long weekend. You’d think we’re there on vacation.

“It’s good,” I answer, because I can’t really tell her about the sleepless nights or Ellie’s crying.

“Amy made fake tacos,” Sophie says, and I turn sharply toward her. A part of me wants to laugh, but I’m too aware of the fact that Uncle Jorge is right here.

Ma does let out a small chuckle. “I’m sure they were great,” she says, and she throws an apologetic look in Jorge’s direction. From the corner of my eye, I see that his mouth is also twisted into a smile.

“We need to talk about your options,” he says. “I spoke to the immigration lawyer earlier this week. He said that—”

“Jorge,” Ma says under her breath, and she puts a hand on her stomach, where the scar from her surgery is.

“Are you okay?” I ask, leaning over the table. “Ma, does something hurt?”

“No, mijo,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m okay. It’s just… I don’t want to talk about lawyers, and immigration, and all of that.” She looks straight into Jorge’s eyes. “Can’t we talk about that on the phone tomorrow? I just… I want to be with my children right now.”

Uncle Jorge gives a small nod. “Of course,” he says. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Ma turns back toward Sophie and me. The light in her eyes returns, and all of a sudden she looks a lot more like herself. “How is school going?”

Sophie and I tell her it’s going well, even though we both know we’ve been slacking. With everything that’s happened, homework, projects, and exams have been the last things on my mind.

“Good,” Ma says. “Maybe when school is out, Uncle Jorge can take you to the beach.”

Something deep inside of me hurts when I remember those summers, what feels like so long ago, when we would set up an umbrella on the beach, and Sophie and I would run around in the sand, while Ma soaked her feet in the water, and Pa tried to read the newspaper even though the pages kept blowing in the wind.

“We’ll all go,” I say to Ma. “When all of this is over, we’ll go to the beach together.”