It’s not like Ilanka could just text the others out of the blue. She needed a reason. Like something she forgot to tell them about the device and her time with it?

She couldn’t think of anything.

Anyway, they’d be in touch Sunday to hand it off to her.

That was the plan, and there was no reason for her to think it would change.

Nothing ever changed.

Maybe nothing ever changed unless you changed it.

“And what’s new with you?” her father finally said when their meals arrived. He turned to her, eyebrows awake.

“I don’t feel like doing gymnastics anymore,” she said.

Her mother’s food caught in her throat with a gag, and she reached for her water. Drank steadily. Coughed. Breathed.

“After all these years? You’ve worked so hard!” her mother said.

“But for what?” Ilanka said. “What am I working toward?”

Her mother had no answer; her father sipped his drink, cut a slice of bloody steak, ate it.

“I just want to have a normal end of high school,” Ilanka said. “With my friends.”

“What friends?” her mother said.

“Ilona,” her father scolded.

“That’s not what I mean,” her mother said. “She has friends. Of course she has friends. At the gym. And Svetlana of course.”

“Maybe I want new or more friends,” Ilanka said. “Maybe I want to … like, try out for the school play or play basketball. I don’t know.”

“Basketball,” her mother said with distaste. It was the same way she sounded when she said words like “hot dog” or “barbecue” or anything American that she loathed.

“Why not?” Ilanka challenged.

Obviously she didn’t want to be friends with Eden and Marwan and Eli, but surely there were people out there she could … connect with.

It wasn’t normal to be alone with her parents so much.

And alone with herself the rest of the time.

Was it?

“Svetlana’s coming on Sunday,” her mother said. “Did I tell you?”

“No,” Ilanka said. “She told me.” Then after a pause, after realizing that the movie-going lie would actually be a good thing for the handoff, she said, “We thought maybe we’d go to a movie instead of just hanging around the house.”

“Fine by me,” her mother said.

“Sure, why not?” her father said.

Ilanka felt the impulse to check her phone—maybe even text them?—but didn’t. It was always a little disappointing when there was nothing new.