Anika looked between her and me, and I felt myself blush. She must have figured out that I’d known and had been speaking to Nora for a while.

“Your baby is due now, in November,” Anika said, and Luca let out a string of curses as Nora nodded.

“You’ll need a hospital, you will have to go back, we can’t just . . .”

Nora firmly shook her head.

Anika sighed.

Luca turned to Mr. Khouri. “Ferman, whatever you think is going to happen here—”

“It’s already happened,” Mr. Khouri interrupted. “She has written a letter to the immigration minister that will now almost certainly be rejected. As soon as her daughter is born—or perhaps after a small extension until April—they will be sent home!”

“Well, maybe they should!” Luca suddenly exploded, slamming his hands down on the kitchen counter so we all jumped in shock.

He bowed his head, hands splayed, as he whispered, “You don’t get to decide—none of us do! Some things are just out of our control.”

“Luca. . . .” Anika walked toward him.

“We don’t all get what we deserve!” he said, as Anika gently laid a hand on his back. He looked up at her, and then stared down at Nora. “And this plan certainly isn’t going to help you get what you want.”

“What is it you think I want?” Nora asked, so gently I didn’t know if everyone else had heard her.

Luca shook his head. “You think they’ll just let you stay? Make you a citizen, give you a nice big house somewhere and a pension to live off?”

“Don’t talk to me this way!” Nora snapped, and I knew everyone in the room heard her then—because they were all suddenly looking at her, as she struggled to stand and face Luca.

“I don’t want any of this,” she said, waving one hand around while bringing the other one to rest on her high, round stomach. “I had no say, no say in any of this! I did not want my country to tear itself apart or ask for those bombs to be dropped in the name of peace! I did not want to leave my home, to be chased to the border and squeezed into that camp and . . .” She sucked in a deep breath that only seemed to rattle in her lungs. Mr. Khouri made a move like he would go to her, but she waved him away. “None of this is what I want, but it is where I am—I have nothing to go back to, and if it was just me . . .” She shook her head and placed her other hand on her stomach. “But it is not just me anymore—I know there is nothing for us, no home back there—but maybe forward.”