She held a thick blue marker in her right fist, pressing round blue dots onto a sheet of white drawing paper.

Noah sat in the wooden chair beside her, carefully coloring the red cab of a fire truck in his own pad.

Mariana set the glasses of juice on the table and picked up a small stack of mail beside the glass fruit bowl.

On top of the pile was a heavy cream envelope stamped with the crest of a downtown law office.

It was a formal request from Teresa’s defense lawyer, asking Mariana to sign an attached character reference before the criminal trial started next month.