Amira was coming back because her daughter was sick, and she was running out of time, and there was no other door.
I will beg, she had told herself on the train, watching Porto give way to the border and the border give way to the long open country in between. I will get on my knees. I will say every true thing I have never said. I will crawl if I have to.
I will crawl for her. Hope's fist uncurled against her neck and then curled again, tighter, in sleep.
Amira pressed her lips to the top of her daughter's head. "Almost there," she whispered. "Almost."
The cab turned onto the long, tree-lined road that led to the Pedro estate.
Amira looked at the gates when they came into view, tall, iron, unchanged, and felt something move through her that was not quite fear, not quite grief, and not quite hope. Something that had no clean name. Something appropriate to the size of what she was about to do.
The driver glanced in the mirror. "This is the one?"
"Yes," she said.
