“She sleeps in the park,” he said. “I think she came from the Delta. I think she escaped the Khmer. Maybe she’s from Cambodia and not where I think. I can’t be sure, but I think I see them in her eyes at times. I see the face of Buddha.”

“Don’t say that word.”

Soon the flower woman decided to keep Lin in a corner of their space, “Over here. Over here.” She sounded impatient. “You sleep there.” She arranged a mat on the floor, a covering, losing her pencil in it.

One night Lin found a new pair of shoes beside the mat on the floor. They were only plastic and they were white, but they fit and she was happy. She tucked her other shoes in beneath her little pile of things and then one day the woman left her a pair of pants.

Yet Mrs. could change without notice. Again one day, she said, “I think the girl is taking money.”

“No, no.” Finally, her husband sat down and confessed. “It isn’t her. I am the one. I take the money some days.”

“What? You? You are just lying to protect her.”

“No. I admit it, I go play cards. It’s only a little money.”

“You monkey! You idiot! You waster!” She picked up the broom as if to chase him away, but then put it back down. “Maybe you need to work harder. Now Lin will deliver flowers. You clean.”

As a child, Lin grew too fast and her bones ached. The florist, wearing her hairnet, soothed her knobby knees with a Chinese liniment in a green bottle. When that didn’t work, she used a Korean oil. It was a bottle that came in a tin because the cap leaked in every single bottle. On the front of it was a girl that looked like Lin, with black bangs. Still Lin hurt. And the woman decided it was chemicals from the war, or the poison smoke, because Lin was from the country. Again her compassion bloomed like her plants. Until she misplaced a ring or bracelet, and then she would think once again that Lin was a thief.

Eventually Mr. arranged a heavy cloth curtain and also a doorway with a deluge of green plastic beads hanging down to separate Lin from them.

Lin was paid a weekly amount. She delivered flowers and she cooked. At night she studied English.

As Lin grew older the flower woman, her back bent a little more, gave her a little more space separated by a piece of cloth the color of lilies and fine enough that a breeze carried the scent of flowers to her mat. The curtain moved and, as they napped in the afternoon, she watched the cloth in the air change colors like a cloud, and watched its soft movement. She thought, as she daydreamed, as she dozed, of her father. She lay on her side and sometimes took out his picture, quietly, so as not to be heard.