card at my quinceañera with a fifty in it and he spelled my name wrong. I knew Mom was lying and I didn't ask because I wanted the car. I wanted it so bad. I'm not going to pretend I didn't." She wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. "And I knew about the blue door, I was there. I knew Grandma Win didn't want us. I've known that since the wedding. She looks at Ampi like Ampi's going to break something."
He sat with that.
"Do you remember the basement?" he asked. He did not know why he asked it. "In Liberal. Your aunt's."
Itzel was quiet. "I remember the air mattress," she said finally. "It had a hole by the foot and we'd wake up on the floor every morning, all three of us, in a pile. Ampi was so little. She had the machine that went like a fish tank. And Mom slept sitting up against the wall the whole time, with her hand on the baby. I'd wake up and she'd be sitting up with her eyes open. I used to think she didn't sleep at all. Like she'd just stopped needing to." Itzel pulled at the strap of her bag. "I don't want her to be like that again. That's why I didn't ask about the car. That's the real reason. I thought if I asked she'd have to tell me something and then she'd have to decide something."
"You're not selling the car," Barrett said.
"But it's your mom's money."
"It's my mother's money that she gave away," he said, "to get you out of my house. She doesn't get to have it back for a better reason than she spent it." He heard himself say it and did not know until he said it that he believed it. "We'll figure out the money. Your mom wants to pay it back and she's going to, and that's her call, and I'm not going to stop her. But you're not selling your car. You drive my kid to jazz band at six in the morning in it."
"She does her reeds," Itzel said, and laughed a little, wetly. "It's so gross."
"I know. I've seen it."
She looked at him sideways. "You said my kid."
"I did."
"You always say that. My kid. Your girls." She said it lightly and then not lightly. "It's okay. I mean, it's true. I have a dad. Sort of." She opened the door. "I'm just saying. Ampi doesn't have one sort of. She doesn't remember him at all. You're the only one she's got, and she knows you say it."