I emerged from the bathroom, reddened and chafed by more than the scrubbing. I slipped into a dress that she had brought me, one that looked just like the one Shawna wore. She’d taken the clothes I’d just shed, as I thought she might.

We were summoned for dinner around the time the sky had started to turn a dusky orange. I followed Shawna and Gabriel down the steps and into the kitchen, where the table had a setting for each of us, silverware, plates, and cups arranged as perfectly as the features on a face.

“Let us bow our heads and say grace,” Everett said with his hands clasped together, his voice deepening. “Bless us, Oh Lord . . .”

Gabriel fidgeted in his seat. He shot a quick glance my way, wiggling the fingers of his clasped hands. Shawna kept her head bent, her shoulders pulled primly back. I followed suit, recognizing the posture of prayer. My family had prayed at meals too, though we held our hands cupped instead of clasped, as if Allah’s blessings would fall from the heavens like snowflakes.

The meal was a colorful one—slices of red tomatoes and green peppers arranged in a circle, chicken breast the color of honey, corn on the cob, and a bowl of pasta. Everett helped himself, as did Janet. I waited, noticing but not caring that the food looked raw or at least undercooked.

“Now the children,” Janet said. Children always ate last at my aunt’s house as well. She worried that my uncles would find picked-apart platters devoid of meat and think her a terrible host.

I reached for the corn, but yelped when I felt a hard thwap across the back of my hand. Janet held a metal spatula in the air like a scepter, one that seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

“The macaroni is for the children. A child is a simple creature and needs simple foods. We don’t want you to fall ill your first day here,” she said, glancing at Everett, who nodded approvingly.

I lowered my gaze to hide the tears rimming my eyes. I felt a tap against my shin and realized it was Gabriel. He held out the serving spoon for the pasta, his eyes darting to his own plate so that I might see the scoop he had served himself and realize that Shawna had taken the same amount. I accepted the spoon with a trembling hand and served myself the exact amount that he and Shawna had taken. The dull glow of the ceiling light cast shadows beneath Shawna’s eyes. Where before I’d seen high cheekbones, I now saw sunken cheeks. Her lips were thin. She had edges I’d not noticed at first.

I chewed slowly, surrounded by strangers with their own peculiar haunts and habits. I wondered why this place of salvation felt suffocating.