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take a little siesta ?”
    He set Celeste down again, took her hand, and led her across a wide, shiny floor of different-colored tiles that made her footsteps echo. She heard Calvin clomping behind them, but when they came to the spiraling staircase in the middle of the entry, he pushed ahead, running up the steps two at a time and, once he got to the top, jumped up and down, begging their father to let him slide on the banister to the bottom.
    “Not now,” Daddy said, laughing. “No need to crack your head on our first day here.”
    At the landing, he steered them to the left, where two doors, one pink and one blue, waited on either side of the hall.
    “Guess which one is yours, silly Cel—”
    But she had already broken away and was flying headlong toward the door. She grasped the brass knob and turned, seeking permission to open it when Graciela and Mother came into view.
    “Can I open it?”
    “And you, too, Calvin,” Mother said, shooing them on. She seemed a bit rejuvenated by their enthusiasm and came to place her hand on the knob too, so they could open it together.
    “Oooooooh.” It was all Celeste could say at the vision that awaited. She knew they’d shipped some of their things ahead; she’d had to pack and say good-bye to several of her favorite toys and dresses nearly a month before. But here they were now—her dollhouse and all its furniture, just how she liked it, and a shelf with all her books, and her tea table and chairs. But there was also a sweet, small china cabinet holding her best, most delicate dishes, and a new rocking horse much larger and finer than her other baby one. The bed was a dream, with four tall posts and white, gauzy material draped between them. The coverlet—pink satin with white stitching—and enough pillows to burrow under.
    “What do you think, princess?” Daddy, hat in hand, filled the doorway.
    Celeste spun in a slow circle, taking it all in. The forest mural painted on the wall. The freestanding easel with a real chalk tray and eraser. The lavender toy chest with who knew what treasures within. And her favorite dolls, all sitting pretty on the upholstered window seat. It was all too wonderful for words, so she simply ran and wrapped her arms around her father’s cedar-trunk legs and then approached her mother with a more restrained, ladylike embrace.
    “Go look out the window, darling,” Mother said, and Celeste obeyed, her feet barely touching the rose-colored carpet. She clambered up onto the seat and pushed the sheer covering aside. The backyard below looked like some sort of fairies’ meadow, with lush green carpet and fountains and flower beds. Best of all, a small, pale-yellow house in the corner, with a real picket fence and a tiny cobblestone walkway.
    She clapped her hands in rapture. “A playhouse!”
    “And one you can play in all year round,” Daddy said, “because there’s never any snow.”
    That gave her a little bit of a pang because it was fun to play in snow, sometimes.
    “Enough of this girlie baby stuff,” Calvin complained. “Can I see my room now?”
    “Sure, sport,” Daddy said, and though Celeste was loath to leave her own paradise, she picked up one of her dolls—a lovely, pretty thing with long black hair and bright-blue eyes—and lingered on the outskirts of the family as they huddled in the doorway of her brother’s room, listening to him go on about a new baseball mitt and an electric light for his desk and a special wicker basket for all of his dirty clothes. It was nice to hear him not being grumbly for the first time since the announcement that they were leaving Chicago, but she didn’t want to pretend to care about his things any more than he pretended to care about hers. So step by slow step, she inched her way back down the hall, until she met up with Graciela, quietly shutting the door to the big room at the opposite end of the hallway.
    “What did you think of your room, mija ?”
    Celeste looked to the left