"Yeah, right," Julie said. "I do all the cooking and cleaning."

"I thought you liked doing the cooking," Alex said. "Besides, how much work is it? All our food comes out of cans."

"I wouldn't mind the cooking if I didn't have to do the dishes, too," Julie said. "And the dusting, which you make me do every day, and sweeping and mopping the floor."

"The place has to be really clean for Bri's asthma," Alex said. "And I don't want her standing in the cold kitchen doing the dishes, either. It's bad for her."

"So I do everything!" Julie said. "It's not fair!"

"Oh, grow up," Alex said.

"I hate you!" Julie shouted, storming into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

"I can do the dishes," Bri said. "Really I can."

"No," Alex said. "Julie'll get over it."

"What about Mass tomorrow?" Bri asked.

"It's All Saints' Day," Alex said. "Of course we'll go." And the day after, he told himself, he and Julie would go for All Souls' Day to pray for Papi and Mami. And he'd take over the dusting and the mopping.

chapter 13

Wednesday, November 9

Bri was waiting for them when Alex and Julie got home from school. "Today's Papi's birthday," she said. "I thought we'd do something special to celebrate."

Alex and Julie exchanged glances. "Like what?" Alex asked.

Bri smiled. "I don't know," she admitted. "Just something. Maybe go to St. Margaret's and light a candle for him."

"Alex and I did that on the way home," Julie said.

"Did you pray for his safe return?" Bri asked. "I worry a lot that he's trying to get back to New York by boat. That's got to be really dangerous with the tides and the tsunamis."

"I'm sure Papi isn't doing anything dangerous," Alex said. "Let's not worry about him today, okay? That's not how he'd want us to celebrate his birthday."

"I checked our supplies at lunchtime," Bri said. "Do you know we still have a can of clam sauce? And half a box of spaghetti. That would make a wonderful supper."

"I was saving that for Thanksgiving," Julie said. Alex glared at her. "You're right, Bri. Let's have that for supper tonight. For Papi."

"St. Margaret's is going to have a Thanksgiving dinner," Alex said. "They just put up the notice. We'll go to that."

"That would be wonderful," Bri said. "Remember turkey and stuffing?"

"Pumpkin pie," Julie said. "Candied sweet potatoes. We'll probably get rice and beans."

"It doesn't matter," Bri replied. "We have so much to be thankful for. We have this wonderful apartment, and we have food and the church and each other."

"Yeah," Julie said. "But I'd still like some pumpkin pie."

"Remember a couple of years ago when Mami bought Papi all those lottery tickets," Alex said, because he didn't want to think about turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and all the things they didn't have to be thankful about.

"One of them won," Bri said. "Fifty dollars."

"And he took us all to the movies," Julie said. "Even Carlos came along."

"Do you think they're still making movies?" Bri asked.

"I don't think so," Alex said. "Not with all the flooding on the West Coast."

Julie looked uncomfortable. "I have some lottery tickets," she said.

"Where did you get lottery tickets?" Alex asked.

"From the bodega," Julie admitted. "Remember when you and Uncle Jimmy left me there alone? I filled up bags of food for us, but I also tore off some instant tickets and put them in my pocket."

"Julie," Bri said. "That's stealing."

"I've confessed and done penance," Julie said. "And even if I wanted to, I can't return the tickets to Uncle Jimmy."

"Have you looked at them:" Alex asked. "Are any of them winning tickets?"

Julie shook her head. "I was saving them for Christmas," she said. "But maybe today would be better, because it's Papi's birthday and he loved lottery tickets."

"Could we do them now?" Bri asked. "Christmas seems so far away."

"Why not," Alex said. "Julie, get the tickets."

Julie ran into the bedroom and returned with the tickets.

"How many are there?" Alex asked.

"Twenty-seven," Julie said.

Alex laughed. "Nine for each of us," he said. "Okay, here's a penny for you, Julie, and one for Bri and one for me. Let's see how rich we are."

Bri squealed almost immediately. "Five dollars!" she cried.

Alex scraped and scraped but came up with nothing.

Julie gasped and made the sign of the cross. "We're rich," she said. "Alex, look at this."

Alex took the ticket from her. Not believing his eyes, he handed the ticket to Bri for confirmation.

"Ten thousand dollars?" she said.

Alex grabbed it back from her and looked more carefully. "Ten thousand dollars."

"That'll get us out of here, won't it, Alex?" Julie asked. "With ten thousand dollars, we can get tickets out of here to someplace, can't we?"

Alex checked the ticket over one more time. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen money being used, but that didn't mean it wasn't. The government still existed and the government owed the owner of that lottery ticket ten thousand dollars. The question was what good was ten thousand dollars.

"Maybe we should tell Kevin," Julie said.

Alex realized he didn't want to tell Kevin —any more than he had wanted Kevin to know he was bartering liquor and cigars. Some things you kept to yourself. "Harvey might be able to help us," he said. "But we shouldn't get our hopes up."

"Couldn't we use the ticket to get food instead?" Bri asked. "Real food. Lots of it. That way we wouldn't have to leave New York."

"I want to use it to get out," Julie said. "It's my ticket. I'm the one who took it in the first place and it was in my pile and I get to say what we do with it."

"But what will Mami and Papi think if we're not here?" Bri asked. "Or Carlos? How will they find us if we leave?"

"It's been six months!" Julie shouted. "They're dead. And Carlos might as well be. I'm not going to stick around here and die waiting for them to come back. Stay here if you want, but I'm going!"

Bri began to cough.

"Where's the inhaler?" Alex asked, looking around the living room for it.

"Bedroom." Bri gasped.

Alex raced into the bedroom and grabbed the inhaler from Bri's night table. "You're supposed to carry this with you all the time!" he shouted, resisting the temptation to fling it at her.

Bri took a deep puff. Her coughing subsided. "Sorry," she whispered. "Forgot."

"You can't forget," Alex said. "Forgetting can kill you. What if you had an attack and we weren't here?"

Bri began to cry.

"Happy birthday, Papi," Julie muttered. \

"That does it!" Alex yelled. "Julie, go to your room, right now."

"Why?" Julie asked. "It isn't my fault Bri's crazy."

"Now," Alex said, trying to keep his rage under control. "Before I pick you up and throw you in there."

"You're too weak to," Julie said, but she took her winning ticket and left, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

Bri kept crying. They'd run out of tissues months ago, and toilet paper was too precious to waste. Alex went to the kitchen and grabbed one of the last three napkins for Bri to blow her nose with.

"Bri, you have to keep your inhaler with you," he said. "You can't just leave it around."

"I know," Bri said. "I'm sorry. I was in the bedroom and then I heard you come in and I was so excited, I forgot it. I always have it with me. Really, Alex."

"Okay," he said. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

Bri looked up at him, and Alex could see the tears in her eyes. "We can't leave," she said. "This is our home."

"I don't know," he said. "At some point we may have to."

"But not yet," Bri said. "Not until Mami and Papi come back."