She slips into a dress. She tiptoes past the kitchen. Jeanette can hear Ana’s pen scratching the paper in violent strokes. Her probation officer: he, too, will sit at her kitchen table. He, too, will scratch pen on paper. Pen on paper. It all comes down to paper.

Jeanette knocks on the door of the neighbor on Ana’s mother’s other side. “Do you know the woman who lives next door?” she says to the mustached man who holds a forty-ounce. Jeanette points toward the neighbor’s house.

“All I know is she cleaned my buddy’s house for twenty bucks once. Nice woman. But poor lady can’t even afford a decent outfit. Damn shame, if you ask me. What with all the men might could’ve took care of her.”

Jeanette looks down at her own outfit, at the bra straps budging from her tank top, at her dirty shoes.

Just as the mustached man is about to close the door, he pauses. “Hey,” he says, pulling a phone out of his pocket. “I just remembered. You said her kid is looking for her? A friend of mine’s wife is the principal at the elementary school near here. Bet you the kid goes there. Maybe she knows something.”

Jeanette stands in the street and dials the number. She looks back at the mustached man, smiles and nods. He watches her. And Jeanette thinks of how she wants to ask him to shut the door but she’d never ask him to shut the door. She doesn’t ask for things she wants. Two rings and a woman with a cigarette-husky voice answers. A dog barks in the background. A baby cries. Jeanette attempts to explain.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I’m … a member of the community. I am worried that Immigration officers may have left a student, from your school, behind … alone … when they took her mother.”

“Oh,” the woman says. “Yes, I’ve heard of this happening before. Have you called the police? What is the student’s name?”

The man at the door slides his thumbnail over the tab of his beer. He looks at the nail. She can taste the beer, memory on the tongue. Why is it that men can be “hard drinkers”? Suave and smooth, leather and whiskey. Her father. A woman who can’t stop is simply a mess. Irresponsible.

“I—Ana,” Jeanette says. She’s not sure why she opts not to tell the woman Ana’s last name.

“I see,” the woman says. There is a muffled sound, then shouting: “Delilah, put the dog down! What’d I tell you about—”

“I’m sorry to bother you—” Jeanette says, ready to end the call. She assumes everyone wants the other person on a call to end it.