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    “Noah,” I whisper, a little more loudly this time.
    Tlick-tick.
The closet door opens. Noah ducks out from under the shirts, hopping over a kerosene lantern.
    A flicker of joy flashes in his eyes, and then he scowls. “This is my room! You can’t just barge in anytime you want.”
    It’s not his room. Uncle Karl and Aunt Hortense own our house.
    “Well…I was bringing you breakfast.”
    “You scared me.” He chews on his lip. “I heard footsteps.”
    “We need a way for me to know it’s okay to come in. I can’t be knocking.”
    “No,” he agrees. “We could hang something on the door.”
    “Maggy might notice. What would she think about things appearing on Jing’s door when Jing isn’t here?”
    “How about the window? If we drape something small over the blind? Would she notice that?”
    “Probably not.”
    He opens the closet, stands on his tiptoes, and runs his hand along the high shelf. Dust motes fill the air; a ball of red yarn falls down. He pulls out a gold braided cord with a tassel on each end.
    “That’s good,” I say, “but what if it’s not safe to come up? Is there a way to get a message to you?”
    Noah’s eyes rove the room. “Orange Tom comes up here. We can attach messages to his collar.”
    “What if someone finds the message? What if they read it?”
    “We’ll have to be careful what we write,” he says as I unroll the kitchen towel and take out the apple butter sandwiches and the jar of peaches. He spreads a cloth on his bed, as if we are having a picnic, and I set the sandwiches on it, open the peaches, and hand him a fork.
    His eyes widen. “You’re going to eat with me?”
    “Sure,” I say. I don’t want him to know I’ve never eaten with Jing or Maggy before.
    I take a bite of my sandwich. Noah tries to stab a peach with his fork.
    “I talked to Uncle Karl. He said he’d help.”
    Some of the stiffness in Noah’s shoulders melts away. He stares at the door as if Jing will come through at any minute.
    Is it mean to tell him that it may be a while? Papa says never give a patient more information than he can handle.
    “In Chinatown, do you live with your mother?”
    “Mama’s in China. I live with my uncle Han.”
    At the wharf, I’ve seen people coming off the steamships from the Orient. Women in bright Chinese clothes, men in black derbies and baggy pants carrying lacquer chests, spices, bamboo, bolts of fabric, large jade figurines, teak furniture. Everyone comes here. Does anyone return?
    “She went back to China?”
    “She never came over. It’s hard for women to leave.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say. “Do you write her?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?” If I could write my mother, I certainly would.
    He shrugs, then takes a bite of sandwich. I wait for him to say more. Finally I offer, “My mama is gone, too.”
    He nods. “Baba talks about her sometimes.”
    “He does? What does he say?”
    Noah’s mouth bunches to one side. “She was kind. She hired him even though he’d never been a cook before.”
    My mother was kind. It feels good to hear this. Papa doesn’t talk about Mama. He misses her too much.
    “She liked to play practical jokes, and she loved chocolate. Chocolate cookies, chocolate ice cream…She even had chocolate sauce on broccoli once.”
    “Chocolate broccoli,” I say, laughing. “And chocolate-covered brussels sprouts, too.”
    “It was your mama’s idea for him to bake things in your birthday cake.”
    “Really?”
    He nods.
    Mama celebrates my birthday with me. Am I just like the Lizzie I was when I was little? Would she love me now, the way she did then?
    “Baba said she adored you, and when she realized she was going to die, she made him promise to stay until you grew up.”
    My mouth drops open. “What?” It never occurred to me that Jing would ever leave. Family members can’t decide they won’t be family anymore. But of course, Jing is not family. He’s staying because he promised Mama.
    Noah nods.
    I