The first thing Grace did when they walked into another apartment was to touch the wall.
It was a two-bedroom flat in a clean, quiet neighborhood, with tiled floors, a balcony, and a kitchen with a gas cooker that had four burners and an oven. The windows let in so much light that Grace had to squint.
"It's too big," she said.
"It's two bedrooms, Mama. We're three people."
"I know. But it is too big."
"You haven't even seen the kitchen."
Grace walked in. She stopped. She put her hand on the counter, a smooth stone surface, cold and clean.
"Ella. This is…"
"A real kitchen. For a real cook." Ella stood in the doorway, smiling. "And you can use it. Not for the business. Just for yourself."
Grace turned slowly. Her eyes were wet.
"I have been cooking over charcoal for most of my life."
"I know."
"I used to blow on the coals until my chest hurt."
"I know, Mama."
"And now there is a button." She pressed the knob on the cooker. A tiny blue flame appeared with a soft click. She watched it as though it were a miracle.
Evelyn, who had been unpacking boxes in the living room, wandered in and leaned against the wall. "Do you remember what we said? The day we saw the black car?"
"The gas cooker," Ella said quietly. "I promised you a gas cooker."
"And a house," Evelyn added. "I said a big house with a gate."
"This is not a house yet," Grace said, with a small, damp laugh. "It is a flat."
"It's the first step."
"It is a good step."
That night, the three of them ate dinner on the floor of the empty living room, surrounded by boxes, with plastic plates and takeaway rice. Grace, who had cooked for half the town, said it was the best meal she had eaten in years.
"Because someone else made it?" Evelyn teased.
"Because I did not wash up," said Grace.
Later, as the girls prepared for bed, Grace stood on the balcony alone, looking out at the city. Lights twinkled across the hills. A car passed below, a sleek one, with the smooth, silent engine of the rich.
She thought about the girl she had been, and the woman who stood in the rain with a sick child on her back, and the sound that had come out of her, from somewhere deep, the night she did not know how to go on.
It had not been a scream. It had not been quite a prayer. It was just a cry, raw and wordless, flung into the dark, the cry of a mother who had nothing left to give but still had to give.
And someone had heard.
"God," she whispered, gripping the railing. "Thank you for hearing me. I did not know how to ask for any of this. But you knew."
Behind her, the door opened softly.
"Mama?" Evelyn said. "Are you crying?"
"No."
"You're crying."
"It is allergies."
Evelyn came to stand beside her. She said nothing. She just put an arm around her mother's waist, and together they watched the city lights.