“Sorry,” I said, unsure of what I was really apologizing for. “I need to get her and some others into new spring outfits.”

“Are you still planning to stay here, at this job, Hunan?” she asked. “In this little place?”

“Yes, at least until I have the baby. Why?”

“Oh. Well. I thought John said you were planning to go back to school soon.”

I shook my head. “I said I was thinking about it, Mom.”

“Well, perhaps I misunderstood,” she said diplomatically.

When she had walked away, her canvas totes bumping against her legs, I returned inside and stood in the window, gazing out onto Passyunk Avenue. The message had been delivered.

The street hummed and clicked with sounds of the old Italian women picking up their bread at the bakery and the girls in their plaid skirts and saddle shoes, walking to St. Maria Goretti High School, which I had also attended, even though our uniforms back then had been much uglier. I watched them walk by every morning, laughing on the way, while I tagged shirts with sale stickers and aligned handbags on the shelves, putting the store in order before it was time to open for the day’s business. They probably arrived in homeroom by 8:30 A.M., and then spent the day being told, as I had been, that they could achieve anything. My friend Aliyah had heeded that message—her writing career was blossoming. Nadia, who nobody had thought would do anything more than eventually get married to George and have some kids, had surprised us all as well. Nobody knew why she’d broken off their relationship, but George was becoming a ghost, haunting me, Aliyah, and Reema for clues, for some hope. It was tragic to watch.

Even Reema had attended Goretti with us. Jewish girls also went to Goretti, and like them, Reema had to sit through classes on Catholicism. Maybe she thought she had something to prove, but she got A’s in that class and in all her other courses. She was finishing a PhD in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where John had finished his own degree.

I thought about Mrs. Martin’s face when she realized I still worked at Lucia’s and planned to stay for a while. Her bright blue eyes had disclosed a brief flash of pity.