Sitting on my butt hurt more than standing on my feet, but I had no choice. I pressed the ignition button with my left hand, looked around several times, taking into consideration that I could barely see, and pulled out from the curb. It took me five minutes in a car to get to the restaurant. Juleen was sitting on the bench by the door, phone and laptop in hand. I pulled up and she got up. I noticed that she was hobbling as she walked toward me. She opened the front passenger door and slid in. It was closing in on seven p.m. She saw my face and gasped.

“I’m fine.” Clearly, I wasn’t. I left the parking lot and pulled into traffic. “I’m okay.”

Tears were running from her eyes. She took my useless right arm and I cried out in pain. Immediately, she dropped it.

“It’s … a little sore.”

“Mommy, I’m calling 911—”

“No!”

“You’ve got to go to a hospital!”

“They’ll take you away … send you back to India. Is that what you want?”

I couldn’t tell how much of my muffled speech she understood, but she must have gotten the gist of what I said. She shook her head and said no.

“I’m fine.” I stopped at a long red light. I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do. Then I remembered. “Gabe. Call him.” When she picked up her phone, I said, “Use a burner … my purse.”

“Right.”

She fished out a burner and called up her brother, knowing his phone number by heart.

Hyper-adult.

Over the phone line, I heard my son’s exasperated voice. “Finally! Where are you?!”

I told my daughter to put it on speaker. Juleen said, “Gabe, you’ve got to come. Mommy is hurt!”

“Badly?”

“Badly.”

“What happened?”

Juleen sidestepped the question. “You’ve got to come get us. I don’t know what to do.”

“Where’s Sanjay?”

Tears overflowing from my eyes, I whispered, “Gone.”

“What happened?” A pause. “Mom?”

Juleen said, “Someone busted into the apartment. That’s all I know. Mommy told me to run and I did.”

“They took Sanjay?” he asked.

I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

“And beat you up?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you now?”

Juleen said, “We’re in the car.”

“She’s driving?”

“Stopped. You’re on speaker, Gabe. She can hear everything. But she can’t talk well. They hurt her face.”

“Oh God,” Gabe said. “I don’t know this phone number. Are you on a burner?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Can you give me the phone number? It’s coming up blocked. If it’s like an iPhone, it should be at the top of your contacts list.”

“Let me look,” Juleen said. “Okay … got it. Here it is.”