I open the closet and dig out the manila envelope I found a few days before. More photographs scatter out. There’s one of my mother, not as I ever saw her. Her hair is feathered into waves, her thick blue eyeshadow matches her shalwar kameez, and a gauzy scarf floats across her neck. Her shoulders are hunched, her chest caved in. There are other people in a room, holding drinks and plates of food. It seems like a happy occasion, but she’s staring right at the camera, unsmiling.

“Rania?” Lidia looks startled.

It’s early the next day, and I’m sitting on a cold floor, leaning against the wall outside Lidia’s office, nursing a cup of coffee when she arrives. “I need to talk to you,” I say.

“Come on in.” Balancing files and an overstuffed bag, she pulls out a clump of keys and lets me in. Once inside, she snaps on the lights, leads me down the hall to her room. “What can I do for you?”

Why do people keep asking that? As if it isn’t obvious. Get my mother out of detention. Stop this crazy tornado of events. “Tell me about the hearing. Why didn’t it go well?”

Lidia pulls off her jacket and motions to sit. Outside, I can hear the phone starting its frantic bleating. Her assistant pops her head in the door. “You’ve got the eight o’clock?”

“Just tell the others they’ll have to wait.”

Her assistant is puzzled—I’m sure there’s a long line of phone appointments and people waiting. I’d called yesterday to try to squeeze myself in, but was told Lidia was booked and in court all afternoon. I decided that the only way would be to have Maria Auntie drop off Kamal at school while I headed to Lidia’s downtown. Another day missed at school, but it’s the last week.

“Look, Rania. You’re really smart. I bet you’ve been taught all about how we’re a nation of immigrants. Maybe you did some class trip to the Statue of Liberty. But immigration law is not the same as the rest of our legal system. You think there is some kind of fairness. But it can boil down to one judge. One guy who may be cranky or inclined to say no to ninety percent of his cases.”

“And in my mother’s case?”

She sighs. “I told her. That it’s not always the story of what happened to you. It’s the story the judge wants to hear. The problem with your case always was that it was your father who was explicitly in danger.”

“That’s not true! My dad disappeared! I remember, we had to flee, really fast—”