But there’s not. Not for me and not for Leni and not for Xie and if you think you can protect him by denying that then you’re just—wrong. She holds Erik’s gaze; after a moment he nods, the first to look away. Goes to Xie, sitting on the bed, his hand on Xie’s flank. I’m going to order some food from the Mexican place. Xie nodding. Rice and beans and grilled vegetables in Styrofoam, he sits up to eat it. TV on. Erik on the bed beside him, gripping an enormous burrito. The protest on the news, a car on fire, a whole street of plate glass windows smashed, a line of ambulances beside a toppled barricade. Erik clicks past it. Xie eating only the vegetables, he can smell the chicken broth in the rice, the lard in the beans, but the onions are good, the peppers, cooked in fresh oil, salt, pepper, tender, he’s trying. Everyone is trying. Remembering the call he made from the jail. Can you come pick me up. Whispering into the phone, he had inexplicably lost his voice. Two a.m. His father instantly awake, Where are you? And closing his eyes to say it, thumbing the silver slot on the pay phone: Downtown. At the jail. Erik said nothing, just got in his truck and drove. A horrible noise when he saw his son’s face, streaked with blood, flesh darkening around his eye. Can you get him a goddamn bandage? Erik yelled, and a cop shuffled down the hall to show his contempt. Looks worse than it is, another cop said. You went up to that farm? Erik asked. You did what they said you did? Xie glanced at the cop. Then back at his dad. Nodded. Erik paid bail and cleaned his face and got him in the truck. They put them in cages, Xie said. Really small cages, and. I didn’t hurt anyone. I just let them go. Erik looking at the road, fingers over his mouth, not trusting himself to say anything. Then, as now, his father slept in his bed, curled on top of the covers beside him. Xie doesn’t brush his teeth, doesn’t pee, just stays where he is. You don’t feel anything. Just float to the ceiling. Stay there.