Bill was our landlord. He had come around two weeks ago to collect rent. Two months’ overdue. Des and I hid in the bathroom in our apartment above the shop until he stopped yelling. I know you’re in there. You need to give me my money or else, Desmina. I mean it this time.

“Fine,” I said. At least when I saw my mother again, I’d be able to tell her that I did whatever it took to keep the shop going. I could say that I had tried to preserve what she had started. I was going to do it even though the idea made my heart race. Even though I knew full well I was probably saying yes to more than Des had described.

Des squeezed my wrist. “That’s my girl. You’ll need this.” She raised her hips off the chair so that she could wriggle something from the pocket of her shorts: a driver’s license, with the name “Clara Voyant” on it and a photo of Des on the left-hand side. Of course. Of course she had already banked on the fact that I would say yes.

I lifted the ID to my eyes. “Des, come on. This won’t work anywhere. And why didn’t you use my real name?”

She ignored me. “Come upstairs.”

“But what if a customer comes?”

“It’s dead out there. And we’ll be back in an hour, tops.” She rose from her chair and thumped up the stairs.

I called after her. “Des, come on! How are we ever going to fix the shop if we just bail in the middle of the afternoon?” But she was already gone. I dragged our chalkboard inside, drew the red curtains across the windows, and locked the door.

I found her in the bathroom, mixing water and brown powder in a plastic bowl until it formed a muddy-looking concoction. She saw me watching and held up a box of henna hair dye.

“I need to change my hair? No way.”

“You need to match the ID.” Des shrugged. “You really like it brown?”

“It’s just …” I had never thought about it, not really. Des had been dyeing her hair the same bright red my entire life. In the photos I had of my mother, her hair was the same color as mine, a medium brown. Nothing special, maybe, but it tied us together in a small way, and maybe I treasured that more that I’d thought. “Nothing.”

“Well, sit down, then.” She gestured to the toilet. I sat and closed my eyes as she rubbed the mixture into my hair with her fingers. She worked the color from my roots through the tips of my hair, pausing now and then to wipe a stray streak of dye from my skin. It was the gentlest she had ever been with me.