Elena didn't argue. she simply poured two mugs of chamomile. "Twenty years ago," Elena began, looking out the window at the gray sky, "I sat on a bus bench in a city where I didn't know a soul. I had a black eye, four dollars, and a suitcase that wouldn't zip. I thought the 'days to come' were going to swallow me whole."

Elena didn't look at the box first. She looked at Maya. She saw the tremor in the girl’s hands and the way she flinched at the sound of a car backfiring outside. Elena knew that look; it was the look of someone who felt the future was a predator waiting in the tall grass.

Elena watched her go, then picked up her tea. The wind rattled the windowpane, but Elena didn't flinch. She simply took a sip, adjusted her "clothing" of strength, and smiled at the darkening sky.

A young woman named Maya walked in, her shoulders hunched as if trying to hide from the world. She carried a small cardboard box. "I need to sell these," Maya whispered, her eyes rimmed with red. Inside were baby clothes, most with the tags still on.