Carlos talks to Dimitri, our neighbor in the next room, who’s a cook at the restaurant and plays guitar in the evenings on the concrete patio. He sets Carlos up with busing and working the kitchen. “There’s also delivery,” he says. “You got a car.” Carlos wakes early, like the others, and is part of the crunching footsteps in the morning, returning with more leftovers than we can stuff into ourselves. Since we have a car, unlike everyone else, our neighbors ask us to take them to the supermarket or the pharmacy, and they pay us five bucks for the gas or buy some extra PowerBars and snacks for us. And Carlos does a few deliveries, so he brings in a hundred bucks a day, which we store in an old mayonnaise jar. Not bad. There’s still our tucked-away cash and Ammi’s small savings account.

I drive into town and buy another phone card. Then I get nervous: If I speak to Ammi, might she ask to speak to Salim Uncle? I decide to get a postcard, something super-generic, so they won’t guess where we are. I find one with sailboats in a harbor and write: Dear Ammi, we are having a great time. Thank you for telling us to go to Uncle and Auntie. They are very nice. They say maybe we can take some trips together here in New England. I hope you are well. I know you will get out soon. Lidia is working on it. Kamal sends his love. Rania. But then I realize I can’t send it—what if she notices the Wellfleet stamp? Will she wonder? I shove everything into the bottom of my bag.

The next day, Doris knocks on my door. “Honey, I need to see your license if you’re going to keep on here.”

I go to the bureau and slowly hand the license to her, sucking in my breath while she peers at it. Her usually friendly expression creases for a moment. I get the prickly feeling all over my skin, and my stomach turns to jelly.

“Please,” I beg.

Her eyes are sharp—sharper than I’ve ever seen. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

“No,” I say. “We’re just waiting. For my mom. Then we’ll all be together.” It’s a lame way of putting it, but I had to think quickly.

“That Carlos boy, he’s a good kid. I hear he’s a hard worker.”

“I can work too,” I put in.

Here she gets alert. “You don’t mind cleaning toilets?”

I do, but I say, “My mom says I made ours shine like a jewel.”

“Thatta girl. You come with me on Thursday and I’ll show you what to do.”

Once I started cleaning, I knew we could stay.

Chapter Thirteen