I can hear Mercedes scuffling to her feet as I grab at the blanket. I sneeze again.

“¡Juepucha! ¿Quiubo, nenas? ¿Qué te me hagan?” Francisco Gómez is sputtering in Spanish.

We scramble to our feet. Me and Mercedes. Rumpled from head to toe, and our hair—even hers—has gone wild, sticking up in every direction. My sister and I stand side by side in front of our father.

For a long time, none of us moves. The only sound is me sniffling—I may sneeze again. He stares at us, the key still in the lock, his hand on the door frame. We must have startled him. He looks back and forth between the two of us. He’s probably wondering if we’re thieves or burglars or runaways. We’re all that and more, of course. Does he recognize us? We look exactly alike right now—our brown eyes big, our mouths waiting to see if we should frown or smile. Our hair, wavy and wild. Our matching Petal Pink fingernails. Does he know we’re his daughters? The longer the silence goes, the faster my heart beats. Will he yell at us? My head is filled with rocks. Will he throw us out, call the security guard? Am I going to jail? Black spots appear in front of my eyes. Will I faint?

Mercedes takes my hand and squeezes, just for a moment. I take a deep, brave breath. “Francisco Gómez,” I say in a clear, calm voice.

“Hi, Frank,” Mercedes says.

There were many things I imagined he might do when he saw us. I imagined he’d be angry. I imagined he’d be happy. I imagined that he’d ask about our moms, ask us how old we are, ask us how we got here. I imagined he might want proof (would my school ID work? My baby picture?). What I didn’t imagine is that he would fall to his knees in front of us and start crying.

It doesn’t take much for me to cry. My mom says I cried at the smallest noise when I was a baby. When I was a toddler, I sobbed every day when she dropped me off at day care. I cried on my first day of kindergarten and on my last day of sixth grade. I still cry—a bad grade, a broken pencil, a look from a teacher. I cry when I’m worried that I’m going to have a panic attack, and I also cry when I see a cute puppy at the park.