But you were resilient, and I guess it’s no surprise. I’ve watched mewling kittens fight for life, the mother flattened into bone and fur by a careless car, and why should a human child be any different? I like to think you need me but I know now—that the feeling is more about my own survival than yours.

When you first got there, I wasn’t moved to another room. Our room had already swelled with more people than beds even though they said that wasn’t allowed. So you slept on the plastic cot with the scratchy blanket with me, and we both tried to will ourselves smaller to make space for the other. You asked me only once where we were and why. I told you it was only temporary, but by then, weeks had passed. You seemed to sense my struggle to answer so you stopped asking. But I could see you swallow the question and it pained me.

You didn’t like your new “school.” You complained that you were in the second grade but had to take a class with first graders and kindergarteners. You called them babies and I wanted you to stop growing, to remain in this moment. You said some of the kids couldn’t speak English but that when you tried to speak to them in Spanish, the teacher said you weren’t allowed. You complained that you already knew everything they tried to teach you. I was miserable and proud at the same time.

You didn’t like the food either but this was easier to get used to. It was hard, watching you no longer savor, lose that pleasure. I watched how eating became mundane. But there were bigger losses to mourn. I couldn’t think about food.

It’s funny, how a place can look so different when you crop the edges. I’d watch you play with the other kids in the industrial-looking playground, all that laughter, all that running and jumping. Except for the wall and chicken wire looming beyond, this could be any multicultural playground in any multicultural city full of happy, thriving kids. It reminded me of when I was young, long before you, in Sonsonate. A group of Christian missionaries came to our town and they built a school and a church. We watched them from behind our porches and favorite trees, how they delighted in everything we eschewed, favored the grubbiest clothes and the simplest food despite the rolls of bills in their lanyard wallets.

One day, as I played with two school friends, one of the Christian missionaries approached and spoke in Spanish to me. “Despite having so little,” she said, “you are so happy. You could teach the children in my country so much about what’s really important in life.”