Out of the corner of my eye, I saw soldiers crossing the field. I had no other choice. With my sturdy foot in its thick Mary Jane, I kicked the flimsy door, once, twice, and then the lock broke and we were in.

There were people there. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean any harm. There are wounded among us.” As my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw there were two Sikh children, a very young British couple, and a Chinese teenager. They were all hiding too, and I had just broken the door. They cowered away from us.

I felt bad for them, but my first concern was Emily. I helped her sit down on a dilapidated rattan couch. Courchene sat down on the floor and leaned his back against one of its arms. I gave him an ampoule, which he took, gratefully. He groaned softly and closed his eyes. It was amazing he had made it this far. I wondered if he would last the night.

I turned to Emily, my poor sister, who had been so joyous and self-absorbed, fun-loving and desperate for love in spite of all the love she was given. She had sunken into a hole so dark that no light could ever enter again. What I knew that she didn’t was that things could get so much worse. I had the power to stop it, but it wouldn’t be easy. Someone had to take care of her. Judge me if you want. Maybe I judge myself, but in the moment, there seemed only one thing to do. And I had to do something. I had to move toward the future, because I couldn’t stay in the present, and I couldn’t leave her there either.

“You can’t tell Old Mah,” I said. “He wouldn’t be able to handle it. His world—our world—would fall apart.”

She looked at me as though I were a foreigner from another country.

“Old Mah. Remember? Your father.”

Was she so far away she had forgotten her family? Her head slumped.

“Em. Things could get so much worse. You can’t tell Tak-Wing either. Men cannot understand these things.”

She didn’t answer.

There was nothing more I could do in the present, so I was trying to fix the future. Not that it did any good. I put my arm around her. She leaned into me. Her body was so cold, like a block of ice, even though it was a warm day.

Finally, she whispered, “Whatever you say, Violet. I don’t care.”