There are two buildings surrounded by a brick wall—one is the synagogue, a modern structure across the way. The other building must have been some kind of mansion, with dark-paneled walls and a wide carved staircase covered in red carpet. On the first floor is a Hebrew school and currently a small summer camp. The second day a counselor knocks on our door and offers to let Kamal join them. Kamal presses tight against my hip, but I hold his hand, take him down the narrow stairs, and bring him to one of the classrooms. When he sees the counselors are all young, like Carlos and me, he loosens just a bit. His damp fingers still clutch mine as he watches a group of kids build a Lego city in the middle of the room.

“Come join us,” a counselor says. She’s got reddish hair and gold freckles all over her arms.

He tilts his face to me. “You only have to stay for a little bit, Aapi.”

“Just a little bit?”

He gives me a cross look. “I’m not a baby!”

He lets go and heads to a corner, where the Magna-Tiles are. I lean against the wall and watch him flapping and flipping the plastic pieces, concentrating hard as he makes different combinations. Kamal needs something to focus on to make him feel secure. At snack time he joins the others around a table, grinning at the juice box and cookies on a paper plate. A little girl next to him is carefully counting her cookies and when she realizes she has one extra, she gives it to him. He happily crams it into his mouth. I leave, my mood light.

Carlos and I hold hands and move in and out of the apple trees, up into a maple grove, where the old syrup lines glint like spider threads, strung from trunk to trunk. I take off my favorite jacket, spread it on the dry grass.

We roll toward each other. I can see his stomach, breathing in and out.

Our lips brush. We kiss, pull apart.

“That was nice,” I say.

“You’re nice.” He squeezes my waist.

“No, I’m not. I’m a pain.”

“A nice pain.” He smiles. “I like it when you get mad. Your eyes get so bright. Like daggers.” He cups my hair. “That night at the restaurant, I just wanted us to have a real date.”

“But you didn’t say that!”

“I could not.”

“Why?”

He puts his arm beneath me so the back of my head rests snug against his arm. “I was responsible for you, Rania. For my little hermanito. It wouldn’t be right. At home, I would ask permission.”

A surge of joy explodes inside me. “I give you permission!” I laugh and kiss him full on the mouth.