Mostly María closed her eyes and tried to banish her sadness and loneliness and fear with sleep, but she always ended up thinking about her mom and dad. Where were they right then? What were they doing? Why did they bring her to this awful place? Didn’t they want her anymore? Didn’t they love her? What had she done to make them hate her so much? And perhaps the most immediate question: Was she going to be living here forever, or would she be allowed to go home again at some point?

5

She was dreaming about her old school, walking into class with no hair while all her classmates pointed and laughed at her, when she heard the key in the cupboard lock. A moment later the angled door opened.

Squinting against light that seemed as bright as if she were staring at the sun, María nevertheless recognized the pudgy, blushed face of Sister Lupita peering in at her.

“Good morning, 46,” she said.

Morning? So she really had been in the cupboard for nearly a full day.

“Good morning,” she replied, trying to sound pleasant.

“Have you repented your sins?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Then climb out of there. Hurry, I don’t have all day.”

María scrambled out of the cupboard and stood before Sister Lupita, avoiding eye contact.

“You didn’t soil yourself?” the nun said, and it sounded as though she were surprised.

“No, Sister,” María said, though now that the woman mentioned it, she realized she did have to go pee very badly.

“I suppose it’s off to breakfast for you then. This way.”

Sister Lupita led her through a series of echoing hallways to a large dining hall. There were a dozen tables in neat rows of fours. Six or seven children sat on long benches at each, eating in silence. Two nuns patrolled the room.

“Go on,” Sister Lupita said, ushering her forward. “Go get your food.”

María went to a small window that opened to the kitchen. A grubby-looking man smoking a cigarette scowled through it at her before dumping a bowl of beans and a crusty piece of bread onto a tray and pushing it toward her. As an afterthought he added a glass of milk.

María picked up the tray and turned to face the room. Sister Lupita was gone. The only sound was the clack of spoons on bowls.

María carried the tray to the nearest table and sat at the end of the bench. She looked at the beans before her. They were covered in a gunky sauce and didn’t resemble the beans her mother made her. Ignoring them, she said to the girl next to her: “Hi.”

The girl didn’t reply.

“I said, ‘Hi,’” she said again.

“You’re not allowed to talk,” a skinny girl hissed from across the table.