One machine is churning and the other has stopped. Inside is a load of clothes, mashed in a gluey mess against the inside barrel. I check my quarters. I have just enough for our load and the dryer. But I can’t wait. I’ve got to feed Kamal and get going on homework. Maybe I can hang the sheets and blanket to dry on the fire escape. So I drag out the other person’s laundry, deposit it into the dryer, and use up half my coins on their wash.

I’m bone-tired, so I heat Kamal’s supper and let him finish the last of the Oreo cookies, which he carefully splits and licks the cream inside before cramming the rest in his mouth. Thank God for Maria Auntie—she’s brought over a pot of soup and milk and eggs and bread. After he’s done, I make him wash his plate and then I let him climb onto my lap. He smells good—of lemony shampoo and soap. Kamal looks a lot like Ammi—he has her hair, which curls thickly at his neck and her wide-spaced cheeks, so he looks like a little lion. But he has none of her ferocity, her will. When he’s unhappy, he goes glum and silent. He tucks himself away, folding up his knees at his chest.

“Ammi isn’t coming home for a while,” I tell him.

His little body freezes. “Why?”

“There are some problems. Remember we talked about how Ammi and I belong to Pakistan, and you were born here?”

He nods.

“So they’re trying to figure that out. How all of us can stay.”

“Why can’t they figure it out here? In our apartment?”

I sigh. “It doesn’t work that way.”

Kamal bolts from my lap and stands in front of me, hands in fists, his lower lip puckered. “She has to come home! Now!”

Then he runs into our room and slams the door, making the wall shake. I wait a few minutes and gently tap on the door, calling softly, “You have me, right?”

His voice is muffled. “I don’t like you! You’re not Ammi.”

A thousand cracks splinter through my body.

In the closet, I find the orange vinyl bag. Inside are silly things: a little satchel with some hair, probably mine or Kamal’s. A few cheap bangles. A makeup bag and little vials of perfume. The bank card, as promised, with her code: NAVEDALWAYS444. There are also several envelopes, each with the words In Case of Emergency. To my surprise, they are stuffed with bills: five twenties in one, two fifties in another. Once I go through all the envelopes, I’m amazed to find six hundred dollars in cash.