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talking with Leela for who knows how long, we have a plan in place—most of which involves us sitting around the motel while Leela does all the dangerous work. We will call her at nine tonight to see if she was successful. If so, she will drive to Motel California. Luka and I will hide in the back of her car while she drives us to the nearest Greyhound station in Eureka. We will buy tickets and we will leave on the first bus out of town.
    To Detroit.
    In the meantime, Luka and I will disguise ourselves.
    After eating two donuts and drinking all my orange juice, I examine the box of hair dye. Luka sits on the edge of the bed, pouring over the three files we picked from the large pile as though committing every symptom, every jotted letter to memory. I begin removing the items from the box of dye—two pairs of plastic gloves, two plastic hair caps, a packet of bleach primer, another packet of light brown dye, a small bottle of golden boost to give the brown a honeyed tint, two application bottles, and directions, which I unfold. I’ve never in my life colored my hair, not even professionally at a salon. It’s always been the same shade as my mother’s—a brown so dark it’s occasionally mistaken for black.
    I hold up a plastic glove. “I’m going to look horrible.”
    “Impossible.” Luka shuts the manila folder. “Do you want some help?”
    “Do you know how to help?”
    “It can’t be that hard.”
    His words do not instill much confidence, but we read the directions together and he pulls on one pair of the plastic gloves. He pours the pouch of bleach into an application bottle and shakes it up. I put a towel over my t-shirt while Luka removes the backpacks from the chair and has me sit in front of the vanity. The first squirt is cold. So much so that I hunch up my shoulders and squeal.
    “Sorry.” I don’t miss the laughter in his apology.
    He continues, squeezing the cold goo all over my head, then slowly massaging it into the roots and out to the ends. My scalp tingles. I’m pretty sure it has less to do with the bleach and more to do with Luka’s fingers. It takes him a while to finish. My hair, which grows like a weed, has grown out since I got it cut with my mom before my first day of school. It hangs well past my shoulders and my bangs are long enough to tuck behind my ears. Once my hair is properly soaked, he hands me the cap. “You’re supposed to leave this on for twenty minutes.”
    Just what I need. A shower cap. When I put it on, the tingling turns to burning. “Is it supposed to sting?”
    “According to L’Oreal, that’s normal.”
    “Are you sure you don’t have a sister?” As soon as the question is out, I want to yank it back in. My teasing smile falls away. Luka might have had a sister if his mother hadn’t listened to the doctors after her first failed government-mandated pregnancy screening. They told her the fetus had an abnormality. Like the many women before her, she underwent a procedure that would fix the problem. Nothing too alarming about that. After all, pregnancy screenings have been part of life for years now. Fetal modification is as common as the flu shot. Not just here in America, but all over the world. It’s the second part of the story that makes it alarming. I look down at my feet. “That was insensitive.”
    “Tess?”
    I keep my attention fixed downward.
    “I don’t shatter easily.”
    This is a good thing. Lately, I’ve been feeling all too shatterable.
    “Did you ever find out whether your mom passed her pregnancy screening when she was pregnant with you?”
    “I could never figure out how to ask without arousing suspicion.”
    “Maybe she never had one. Lots of women were slipping under the radar back then.”
    My mind wanders to Luka’s mom, failing her second screening but carrying the baby to term anyway, and for the first time, a fierce sense of admiration blossoms in my chest for the woman. All the worry she must have gone through during