This Time It’s Real

I once heard this theory that when you dread something, time moves faster, as if the universe is determined to conspire against you.

I can now confirm firsthand the theory is true.

It’s Monday night, and my family is gathered around the high kitchen counter, bowls of diced vegetables and light brown loaves of store-bought bread spread between us.

Since we had homemade dumplings for dinner yesterday, we’re making our special sandwich recipe tonight. Ma and I first came up with the idea when we were living in America; it’s like a basic baguette sandwich, except we fry the leftover pork-and-chive dumpling fillings into a golden patty, then add pickled carrots and fresh coriander and red oil chili sauce. The combination tastes so good that sometimes Ma jokes we should sell the idea to one of those modern Asian fusion restaurants in downtown LA.

At least, I think she’s joking. When it comes to her and potential business opportunities, you never really know.

“So how’s school been?” Ma asks as she slices a loaf of bread in two and passes it down. We’re seated in a kind of factory-line arrangement, Ma in charge of handling the bread, Ba assigned to the meat patties, and Emily and me left to do everything else.

This sudden pivot in the conversation catches me off guard. Up until a few seconds ago, Ma had been talking in elaborate detail about how she patched up that major Kevin-shaped crisis with SYS; apparently, she’d done some stalking, pulled a few strings, reached out in private to the son of the company head (“a very polite young man, and quite easily flattered too; I do hope he ends up taking over the company”) and smoothed the whole situation over.

“Uneventful,” Emily says, reacting much faster than I do, then shoots a meaningful glance my way from across the counter. “What about you, Jie? Anything … interesting going on in your life?”

I chew the inside of my cheek.

This is the part I’ve been dreading: telling my parents and sister that I’m dating Caz Song. Even though I’ve already bought Emily the exact amount of Pocky specified in our previous verbal agreement, I know that no amount of snacks or bribery will stop the word about my new relationship status from spreading and inevitably reaching my family. I mean, I’ve already gained a few thousand more followers from my blog post about our trip around Chaoyang Park: “Let’s Cancel All Our Plans and Kiss at the Park Instead.” I have two more posts in the works for the Love and Relationships section next week, each as ironic as the next: “When You Know, You Know: It’s Love” and “A Little Anecdote on How to Survive Those First-Date Jitters.”

So since them finding out is inevitable, I’d much rather Ma and Ba hear the story from me than yet another impassioned think piece floating around on the internet, or one of our many aunts who browse the gossip articles on WeChat.

All of which sounds great in theory.

In practice, I’m so nervous I keep dropping the pickled carrots.

“Yes, how is school, Eliza?” Ma asks, turning to me. She wiped off her makeup right before we started cooking, and her eyes still have that dark, smudged quality from leftover eye shadow, making them look even sharper than usual. “Have you made any friends?”

My mom’s evident concern for my social life aside, this seems as effective a conversation opening as any. I might even be able to put a positive spin on my news. After all, a boyfriend is technically a kind of friend, right? Just with more potential physical contact.

I clear my throat. Attempt to ward off all non-family-friendly thoughts with a quick wave of my hand. “I—um. Yeah. I think so.”

“You think you’ve made a friend?” Ma’s brows furrow, perplexed.

“I think he counts as a friend,” I clarify. I can already feel the heat rushing to my skin. “Depending on … on your definition of the word.”

Something in my voice must give me away, because everyone looks up. The line between Ma’s brows deepens. Ba merely appears surprised and a little lost, though that might be because he’s halfway through composing a new poem in his head.

My only source of comfort right now is that we’ve never had a no-dating policy in our household.

It’s strange, really, the kind of things my parents are strict about. Like, they’ll freak out if I wear a tank top outside and my bra strap is showing, or if I go to bed with wet hair, but they aren’t opposed to the idea of me dating in my final years of high school, and they’ll encourage me to attend social gatherings because they consider it a “life skill.”

I know a lot of people can’t wrap their heads around my parents’ logic. My friends at my old schools could never understand why I was allowed to have sleepovers at my place, but not theirs, or why it was such a big deal that I stay off my phone during family dinner times. A lot of them were shocked that we even had proper family dinners, instead of quick bites between school or work.

But if I’m honest, I don’t mind it. My parents’ rules might not make total sense to others, but they do to Emily and me.

Plus, their highly specific rules mean that no matter what I say next, I at least don’t have to worry about my parents disowning me.

“Are you trying to tell us something about a certain boy in your life?” Ma asks slowly, tentatively, as if phrasing the question wrong might scare me away. Though I doubt there is a right way to ask about this kind of thing.

Emily, as always, is much more direct. “So you do have a boyfriend?”

“Well …” I lick my dry lips. It’s even harder than I’d imagined, telling them about Caz when they’re all studying me so intently. I pretend to rearrange the slices of carrot on my plate, then answer in Mandarin. “Uh, yes.”

A beat.

Panicking, I continue. “There is. I am. I mean, I’m with someone. In, like, a romantic sense—though of course, given our age and the general dating trends in modern-day society—”

“Who is it?” Emily asks, saving me from my rambling.

Neither Ma nor Ba says anything, but Ma is making that poker-face expression she always does when she’s trying very hard to absorb a new, significant piece of information: her gaze carefully guarded, her mouth pressed in a thin line.

“Um, you know the male lead from that drama we’ve been watching?” I begin.

Emily raises her brows. Ma nods once.

Ba stuffs a new patty between the loaves of bread.

The silence tightens around me. I can only hear the kitchen clock ticking like a bomb, counting down the seconds until I force myself to say, “Yeah, so, that’s him.”

Another beat.

I expect shock. Confusion. Maybe even awe.

What I don’t expect is for my family to burst out laughing.

“Tian ya,” Ma manages through her sudden fit of hysteria. She’s actually wiping at her eyes. “I didn’t think you were one of those—those idol chasers, Ai-Ai. And you looked so serious about it too!”

Emily is snorting into her hand. “If you’re dating that Caz Song guy, then I’m dating Gong Jun.”

“And I’m dating Liu Dehua,” Ma adds, shaking her head as she resumes her bread slicing again.

Ba frowns at her. “You’re married.”

“Oh, it’s just a joke, Laogong.” Ma nudges him playfully with one elbow, and Ba’s expression softens at once. “Of course I haven’t forgotten about you.”

If my face wasn’t on fire before, it definitely is now. “I’m not joking,” I protest, setting my plate of carrots down. “I am dating him. He goes to our school.” Desperate, I turn to Emily for help. “You know he goes to our school, right? And he lives close to us?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard,” she allows, still smiling slightly. At least she isn’t outright laughing anymore.

Progress. Kind of.

“I’m sure you will find someone, Ai-Ai,” Ma says. God, now she’s comforting me. This is so not how this conversation was supposed to go. “You’re a very bright girl, and you’re funny, and you can—you can eat spicy food, and you …” She trails off with a vague gesture, evidently searching hard for more positive qualities of mine.

“You are very good with those carrots,” Ba offers.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s really nice of you guys. But I’m literally trying to tell you that I have found someone. In fact, you know what?” I snap my fingers together, struck by a lightning bolt of inspiration. “I have proof.”

As my parents exchange puzzled, if not somewhat alarmed, glances, I wipe my hands on my shirt, take out my phone, and open up the selfie I took with Caz. The one of me kissing his cheek.

“This is where I was the other day,” I explain, spinning it around so they can see. “With him.”

I resist the urge to melt into the floor as everyone leans in and inspects the photo closely from every angle, as if it’s some rare, endangered specimen never captured on film before.

“Well,” Ma says at last, sitting back, her poker face falling into place again.

For a moment, I can’t decide what’s worse: my parents refusing to believe that I could be dating Caz Song, even with photographic evidence … or my parents believing in my lie fully. Trusting me. A needle of guilt pricks my stomach at the thought.

Then Ma clasps her hands together on the counter, all businesslike, the bread now totally forgotten beside her. “I suppose I’m just curious to know … How exactly did your … this”—she points at the screen—“begin?”

And so I tell them. I tell them the exact same story I wrote about for my essay, because the more consistent your lie is, and the fewer versions of it you come up with, the better. It’s easier to keep all your facts straight that way.

When I’m finally done, and most of the bread has likely gone stale, Emily claps a hand to her mouth.

“Oh my god. Are you going to invite him over?” she asks, eyes wide. “We should all meet him. And if we ask him for some autographs, we could sell them—”

“No!” I yelp. Bringing Caz home is one boundary I definitely do not want to cross.

“What do you have against money?” Emily demands.

“I’m not talking about the autographs.” Though there’s no way I’m letting that happen either. “I just want to hold off on the meeting-my-family thing, okay? It—it’s too much, too soon. And besides, you’ll probably see him around school anyway.”

“Your sister’s right,” Ma tells Emily, coming to my rescue. “We don’t want to scare the boy off.” Then she turns to me. Smiles, the faint lines of her face softening, her Super-Professional Businesswoman mannerisms melting away. She’s just my mother, who always lends me her shoulder as a pillow during long plane rides and boils sweetened mung bean soup for us every summer to help stave off the heat. “You shouldn’t wait too long either. I remember that I first introduced your father to my parents shortly after we graduated.” She winks. “Obviously, it turned out quite well.”

There it is again. The needle in my stomach.

But still, I make myself say it: “Yeah. Okay.”

•    •    •

Despite what I’ve told Emily, I don’t actually expect her to bump into Caz at school. After all, the primary and senior schools run on different timetables; we’re always stuck in class during the primary students’ lunchtimes or assemblies, and vice versa. It’s why I’ve only ever seen Emily at the start and end of the school day, when we’re waiting for the driver together, or when I deliberately seek her out in her classroom.

But on Friday, in an unfortunate twist of fate, our English class is dismissed twenty minutes early—right when the primary school kids are having their break.

I spot Emily the second I step out into the sun-flooded courtyard, Caz somewhere close behind me. She’s playing that traditional Chinese ti jianzi game with at least eight or nine other girls her age. It’s a simple game, more speed than strategy, requiring that the players pass a shuttlecock between them using mainly their feet.

I stop to watch them play, my books hugged to my chest.

They’re all giggling madly, yelling at one another whenever the shuttlecock looks close to falling, dashing forward and back again every time they see the flash of colored feathers.

It doesn’t take long to dissect the group dynamic; years of quietly observing my classmates at new schools have honed my skills.

Even though Emily and her friends are technically all standing in a circle, the prettiest one—the one with the polka-dot hairband and loudest, tinkling laugh—is clearly the leader. She keeps barking out names and instructions at the others, and it’s her who takes the shuttlecock from whoever’s retrieved it without so much as a thanks.

And Emily, I realize with a small, anxious jolt, is hovering somewhere toward the bottom of the social ladder. None of them seem to bother passing the shuttlecock to her, and when she does manage to kick it, none of them cheer very loud.

I feel myself frown. This isn’t supposed to happen. Emily has always been the social butterfly of the family, likable and adaptable in all the ways I’m not.

But then again, maybe all the moving around hasn’t been quite as easy for Emily as I believed. Or maybe there’s something about this school in particular that has made it harder than usual.

“Is that your sister?” Caz asks, breaking through my thoughts. He’s pointing straight at Emily.

I turn to him, surprised. “Yeah. How did you know?”

He shrugs. “You two look alike.”

This is so inaccurate I almost burst out laughing. Unlike Emily, I’ve inherited none of Ma’s delicate, sculpted-ice features, her glossy hair and dewy skin. Instead, I take after both my father and no one, my face drawn from a random arrangement of broad, cutting strokes and round lines, like some kind of afterthought. “You’re probably the first person in the history of the world to say that.”

“It’s the smile,” he says, eyes flickering to me. “You two have the same smile.”

Before I can even think of an adequate response to this, Emily catches sight of me.

“Jie! Jie!” she yells, breaking off from the circle and sprinting across the short length of the courtyard. Her pigtails whip forward as she skids to a stop before me, seconds away from crashing into my stomach, and looks up, breathless and beaming.

Then she sees Caz. And she goes perfectly still.

“Hey,” Caz offers.

Emily’s eyes are so wide she looks like a cartoon character. “You’re … Caz Song,” she says, voice hushed. “My sister’s boyfriend.”

“Yeah.” Caz bends down slightly until they’re the same height. Smiles. It’s a different smile from the one he wears on TV, or around people in our year level; it’s gentle, kind. “I am.”

“Holy shit,” my nine-year-old sister whispers.

I elbow her, hard. “Language.”

“Sorry,” she says, sounding not even remotely sorry. “I meant holy crap. Happy?”

“Not really,” I mutter.

Caz’s smile widens until his dimples are visible, and Emily positively melts. Which, under ordinary circumstances, should be a good thing; everyone wants their family to like their boyfriend. But all I feel is a faint pang of unease. The more attached Emily gets to Caz, the more it’ll hurt when our six-month relationship reaches its end.

Thankfully, this conversation from hell is interrupted by none other than Emily’s entire friend group—

“Emily! Come on!”

“Dude, what’s taking so long?”

“Are you playing or not? Because we can play without you, you know.” This, from their leader. She’s crossed her arms over her chest, tapping her foot impatiently on the asphalt. I feel an immediate surge of dislike toward her.

“I—I’ll be there in a minute!” Emily calls back, then turns back to us with large puppy-dog eyes. “Can you guys join in?”

I expect Caz to make some polite excuse about schoolwork and leave, but instead, he nods and grins widely. “Of course.”

Emily squeals and throws her skinny arms high up over her head, looking like a perfect stock-image result for when people google “happy” or “celebration.” “For real?”

“Yeah, for real.”

I stare at Caz over Emily’s shoulder, my mind spinning. All he does is smile back at me. What the hell is he up to? We agreed to keep our families out of this, and I can’t imagine him benefiting from this situation in any way. Is he so committed to his role as the perfect fake boyfriend? Or is it just a habit for him by now, to constantly entertain, perform, impress?

“Well, you guys go ahead,” I say, backing up against the building wall, books still clutched tight to my body like a shield. “I’ll watch from here.”

Emily pouts. “You’re not coming?”

“I … don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Of course it’s necessary.” Caz’s smile is evil now, wicked. He extends a hand in invitation, and a third possibility pops into my head: Maybe he just wants to see me make a fool of myself. “Come on. Who doesn’t enjoy kicking pieces of glued feathers around?”

I take another step backward; my heel hits cold brick. “No, no. No, I’m basically allergic to it—”

“What, fun?” Caz says, and Emily giggles.

“Intensive exercise,” I correct. As well as embarrassing myself in front of a group of strangers. No matter how tiny they are.

“You call ti jianzi intensive exercise?” Caz shakes his head like I’ve just told a bad joke. “Eliza, I’ve seen eighty-year-olds kick shuttlecocks with minimal difficulty. I think you’ll be fine.”

Emily nods vigorously and turns her dark, pleading eyes on me. I’ve always hated those puppy-dog eyes. Hated them, because they’re so effective. Because they always make me say and do things I know I’ll regret—

Like saying yes to her game of ti jianzi.

A brief, stunned silence falls over the girls as Caz and I make our way toward their circle, though I suspect the silence is directed more at him. I imagine seeing him from their perspective, this famous actor who has appeared without warning like someone from a dream: tall and easy mannered and effortlessly handsome. And he is smiling at only Emily, barely acknowledging the others, saying, “Thanks for inviting me over, Em,” with a wink like they’re best friends.

Whatever his reasons, an unexpected gust of warmth fills my chest seeing them together like this, blows all the locked doors and windows inside me wide open.

But apprehension soon comes creeping in on its heels. Interacting with siblings is murky territory. No matter how hard I try to control our arrangement, to keep it strictly scheduled and organized and professional, things like this pop up and threaten to tangle everything irrevocably.

“You go first,” the girl with the polka-dot headband instructs Caz, her eyes hard, hands firm on her hips. She has the high, ringing voice of someone who is used to having her way, but when Caz raises a cool eyebrow at her, she wilts. Mumbles, “Or—or whatever works best.”

“I can go, Meredith,” Emily says cheerily. The leader, Meredith, frowns, but she doesn’t protest. Not with Caz and me standing here, disrupting the power dynamics.

Emily picks up the shuttlecock and kicks it high into the air, with a sound like rattling coins. The girl beside her catches the object on its way down using the toe of her sneaker, then bounces it over to Meredith, who passes it quickly, roughly, to Caz—who retrieves it with ease.

He bounces the shuttlecock back and forth between two feet, even hits it with the top of his head, which draws in bursts of loud, enthusiastic applause.

And he looks … Well, he looks ridiculous. This isn’t exactly a graceful, dignified game, and even Caz can’t quite manage to make ti jianzi look the way horse riding or archery or boxing does. But he’s good at it, insanely coordinated, confident despite the inherent ridiculousness of this game, and that’s more than enough to impress.

He’s so good, in fact, that soon he’s drawn a substantial crowd.

I try to keep my attention on the shuttlecock, but my skin tingles with the new, uncomfortable awareness. There are far too many pairs of eyes trained on us. On me. Sweat beads above my brow.

“Go, Caz!” someone cheers from the sidelines, joined by some unnecessarily loud whoops and whistles, as if this is the final round of the Olympics.

Caz just smiles his superstar smile and continues passing the shuttlecock around without any hint of self-consciousness, at ease in all the attention.

But when the shuttlecock comes flying toward me, I fumble and drop it. And then I hear it: a low but audible snort from one of the watchers. There are too many people around to tell where it came from, but it doesn’t matter. My whole face burns as if struck by a match.

Shakily, I pick the shuttlecock up again and attempt to kick, but it flops pathetically to the side, and Emily has to retrieve it instead. This time, the snort isn’t even muffled. Nor their voice, dripping with obvious disbelief:

“That’s the girl who’s dating Caz Song?”

It feels like someone’s reached into my stomach and squeezed my insides into a ball. This sort of first-degree humiliation is exactly what I wanted to avoid. And even though it’s irrational and petty, I feel an abrupt stab of anger toward Caz. Caz, who’s still smiling, playing to the audience, the sun’s molten-gold light falling around him like a halo.

Of course he enjoys doing things on a whim. Nothing is ever embarrassing for him.

“I—I’m going to rest for a bit,” I call out, stepping back into the shade, my blood pounding hot and thick. Everyone is staring. “You guys keep playing without me.”

Caz shoots me a quick look like, Are you sure? Emily and her friends don’t even glance up.

“Really. It’s fine,” I say.

But they’ve already started up again anyway.

•    •    •

“I like him.”

It’s later that afternoon, and Emily and I are balanced on the low metal railings outside the school library, feet dangling inches off the ground, while we wait for Li Shushu to pick us up. Our bags have been dropped on the lawn, bloated and brimming with textbooks, dirty Tupperware, laptop chargers, and more useless yet mandatory things.

My shoulders hurt.

I massage them with one hand, slide back on the poles, look ahead. Cars have already started pulling into the outside parking lot, tinted glass and polished metal gleaming, fumes rising off the pavement in waves, like heat.

“Who?” I finally ask, though I can guess.

“Your boyfriend,” Emily says, tearing the head off a gummy worm with her teeth. One of her friends gave her an entire packet after lunch. “Caz. My friends really like him too.”

“I’m not surprised. Everyone loves him.” An embarrassing, residual note of bitterness from the ti jianzi game tinges my voice. It’s not like it’s Caz’s fault that he’s so universally adored. That whatever it is I’m deficient in—charm, looks, the ability to draw people in, to make them stay—he has in excess.

Not his fault at all.

And yet the bitterness lingers, like the herbal medicines Ma always brews for us when we have a cold.

“Do you think he’ll play with us again tomorrow? Or the day after?”

Emily’s face is open, hopeful, eager. I have to look away, ignoring the sharp stone in my stomach. The last thing I need is for her to get attached to Caz. Especially when I don’t know how he really feels—if he was so nice because he really likes her, or just likes kids in general, or if it was a onetime thing. Either way, I should really talk to him about leaving my sister out of this.

More cars crawl past us, spitting out smoke.

“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “But just don’t get your hopes up, okay? Caz is really busy with his shooting schedule and endorsements and things and … and there are a lot of people who want to spend time with him.”

And when my internship ends and his drama premieres, he won’t have any reason to spend time with either of us.

“Oh. Okay, then.” Emily nods, disappointed but already accepting it.

Then she grins and licks the rest of the purple gummy until it’s a shiny, transparent color, the sugary tail sticking to her fingers.

I wrinkle my nose. “That’s low-key very gross.”

She sticks her purple-stained tongue out at me. I pretend to push her off the railing, and she shrieks, laughing.

The parking lot is starting to empty instead of fill now, students tossing their bags into back seats and trunks, doors clicking shut, tearing open packets of chips and Wang Wang rice crackers to savor on the ride home. And still, no familiar car shows up.

It’s not the first time Li Shushu has been late; his schedule is divided between us, Ma, and Ba, and of course Ma is his first priority. The chances are that she had to run off to an emergency meeting with a client, or one of her conferences got pushed back.

But as the minutes drag by and Emily’s supply of gummy worms runs low, I can feel her patience waning.

“So. Tell me about your friends,” I say—to distract her, but also because I’m curious. Because I can’t help wondering how things would’ve turned out if Caz and I hadn’t intervened, if she’d still be left on the perimeter of her friendship circle. It’s a feeling I’m quite used to but that I don’t want Emily to ever experience.

Emily snorts. “You sound like Ma.”

“Yeah, but I’m part of your generation. I can understand these things. Give you advice.”

“That’s what all old people say.”

I really do shove her this time—lightly, of course—and she teeters for a moment, arms flailing everywhere, before hooking a foot around the rails and regaining her balance.

“Fine,” she huffs out. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. You just haven’t talked about them a lot. And this is my first time seeing you at lunch.”

She kicks a leg out, swinging it into the blue air, toes touching the clouds. “Well, I only started hanging out with them recently.”

“Why only recently?”

“They didn’t know what to think of me.” The way she says it, I realize she’s repeating something one of her friends told her. Probably that Meredith girl. And I know I probably shouldn’t be hating on a nine-year-old, but it still makes me angry.

“How come?” I ask, my voice neutral.

“They … weren’t sure where I was from.” Emily’s voice is neutral too, but it grows quieter the more she talks. “Like, there are these girls in my class who only speak Cantonese to one another, and all their families have been friends since kindergarten. And then there’s this other group that’s predominantly American and Canadian, and they’re not really close to any of the local Chinese kids. They’re friendly, but not close. And I’m not …” She scratches at some invisible itch on her elbow. “I guess I’m not like any of them.”

We fall into silence. The parking lot is almost empty now, one long, blank stretch of gray. Still no driver, no familiar face.

“That’s a hard word,” I say after a while. “Predominantly.”

“We’re meant to learn ten new vocabulary words every week. For English. I also learned the word dichotomy.”

“Nice, nice.”

“Yeah. I’m not sure what it actually means, though.”

“You’ll get it when you’re older,” I reassure her. “Or … or at least you’ll get better at pretending you do.”

She blows a stray wisp of hair out of her face. “I hope so. Maybe I’ll find my Zoe.”

I pause. “What?”

“You know, like a best friend who’ll always be there for me, and stick by me no matter what happens. Like you and Zoe.”

“Oh. Um, yeah. Right.” But a sliver of doubt creeps through my voice, and it’s this—the doubt itself, the immediate squeeze in my chest—that worries me almost as much as the unusually brief texts we’ve exchanged recently, or how all her latest Instagram posts feature her and that new Divya girl hanging out together, or how she’s started tagging other classmates in those Facebook memes instead of me. I’ve been through this enough times with old friends from old schools to know how this tends to go. How those daily texts turn into weekly updates turn into sporadic once-a-month catch-ups turn into nothing.

But this is Zoe. The one who’s stuck around longest. The one who knows me better than anybody. Since when did I start questioning the strength of our friendship?

Before my thoughts can spiral further, I get back to the point. “Hey, you will … tell me, won’t you? If anyone in your class excludes you, or says something mean to you.”

“If I did, what could you do about it?”

She doesn’t say this in a mean way, as a challenge; more in this very offhand, matter-of-fact manner that twists my heart into knots.

“I’d punch them,” I decide firmly.

“Really?” Emily eyes me with faint disbelief. “No offense, Jie, but you can’t even hit a cockroach without screaming.”

“Well, I mean, first of all—cockroaches are disgusting, and they have no right to make those crunching sounds when they die. And second, yes, really. I could do it.” And I would. For her.

She considers this, then hops onto the ground, dusting sugar off her palms. “Okay, then. I guess.”

Our conversation is cut short by the rumble of an engine drawing closer, the school gates creaking open to let our driver’s car in. He slows the vehicle when he reaches us—the only two students left on campus—his front windows rolled down, the blast of cold air and a snippet from some Chinese radio talk show escaping through the gaps.

“Sorry,” Li Shushu calls, sticking his bald head out. “I had to pick up your mother from a convention. Got stuck in traffic.”

“It’s fine,” I call back. As Emily runs over to heave our schoolbags off the grass, the canvas bottoms now stained with damp green patches and mud spots, I hold the car door open. Hold out my other hand.

“Come on.” I nod at her. “Let’s go home.”