High school began at the end of August, and Karina signed up for a full schedule of rigorous classes, despite the school counselor’s warning for freshmen to give themselves time to adjust. She pushed herself in each of her classes, taking some pleasure in the depletion she felt each night when she crawled into bed, hours after her parents had gone to sleep. Though her father left her lunch money, Karina made her own breakfasts and lunches. She hitched rides to school with friends or rode her bicycle. There was already so much pain in their home that Karina wanted her parents to see only good things when they looked at her, to feel proud and happy; not to see in her the reason her brother was gone.

Karina spent much of her time after school at Izzy’s house, doing homework and playing with Dominick. Izzy’s parents often invited Karina to stay for dinner, and she always did. She was grateful for the relief the Demetris’ spaghetti and casseroles provided from her grandmother’s Indian cooking night after night.

* * *

Mrs. Galbraith, Karina’s biology teacher, was grading papers one day after school when Karina went into the science room. “Hey, Mrs. G, do you have any books on orchids?”

“Orchids? Hmm, let me see.” She crossed the classroom and started looking through the bookshelf, where Karina joined her. “Well, there’s this.” She held up a book on bonsai and chuckled. “Not quite the same. Why orchids?”

“Well, I . . . we have a few of them at home and they had flowers for a couple months, but now they’ve all dropped their blooms. I was wondering if I did something wrong.”

Mrs. Galbraith leaned against the wall. “I know you’re supposed to let them dry out between watering, since they’re used to tropical environments.”

“Yeah, I read that online,” Karina said.

“Do you have a moisture meter?” Mrs. Galbraith ducked into a cabinet beneath the sink and pulled out a long metal rod with a green frog on the end. “I know it looks silly, but it’s a copper probe.” She showed Karina how to place the bright metallic orange tip into the soil so it would register the moisture well below the surface, near the roots. “You can borrow this one if you’d like.” She held out the frog to Karina.

“Thanks. I’ll bring it back.”

“And I’ll keep looking for orchid books,” Mrs. Galbraith said.

When Karina returned the following week, she found Mrs. Galbraith standing at one of the tall lab tables, her gloved hands deep in a pot of soil. “Ah, Karina, I’m glad you’re here. Give me a hand, will you?”

Karina dropped her backpack on the floor and joined her.

“This tree is going into that bowl.” Mrs. Galbraith gestured with her chin to a ceramic bowl sitting across the table. “When I lift this up under the root ball, can you move the soil left in the old pot to the new one?”