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The Social Service lady thunked her tan plastic purse onto the tiled floor and knelt so that her eyes were just below Ulla’s. “You’re such a pretty little girl,” she cooed. “I think I heard you say, ‘Momma.’ You want to know where your Momma is?”

Ulla nodded, but slowly, furrowing her brow.

“What—is—your—name?” the Social Service lady blasted.

“She’s not deaf, for crying out loud,” said the police officer.

The Social Service lady sighed and pointed at herself. “Kellee.” She held up two fingers. “With two E’s.” Then she touched Ulla’s chest. “Name?”

Ulla lowered her chin to look at Kellee’s hot pink fingernail and then tilted her eyes up.

Kellee repeated the action. Saying her own name, then poking Ulla.

Ulla finally whispered, “Ulla.”

Kellee tossed another helpless look at the police officer.

He scrunched his face and then honked a laugh. “Oo-la? Is that some Scanda-hoovian name?”

Ulla lowered her face to hide her suppressed grin. People she’d meet in the grocery store, the library, and the service garage where her mother had worked often asked her to repeat her name as if they’d misheard. She never did. Because her mother would remind Ulla if she wanted to be like Harriet the Spy and Nancy Drew, she had to pretend she didn’t know English.

“People reveal all sorts of secrets when they think I don’t understand,” her mother had said on a cold night in the car, when breathing the air was like swallowing needles. “You know what’s more powerful than money, Ulla?” She tapped the steering wheel of their baby blue 1964 Ford T-bird and repeated, “Secrets.” She smudged her tears, leaving black streaks in their place. “Secrets,” she hissed the word as if it were venom. Venom that could be stored up and used to strike an enemy when cornered.

Kellee moistened her thin, strawberry lips, seemingly at a loss, tossing her face upwards. Ulla noticed Kellee’s skin tone, orangish on her face and white on her neck. She spoke again, elongating and enunciating each word. “Your . . . Momma . . . is . . . in . . . the . . . hos-pi-tal.”

Ulla bit her cheek hard and gulped the tears.

Kellee sighed and shrugged. “Sweetie, when your momma’s all better, you’ll see her again. But in the meantime, I’m going to take you to a shelter.” She kept calling Ulla Sweetie. The same men at the same parties called her mother that, too.

“Where’s the kid’s dad?” the police officer asked.

“Good question,” Kellee said.

Kellee tucked Ulla in at the shelter with promises to check on her in the morning.

Good question. Ulla now sucked down a throb of emotion. From inside the shelter’s room, she returned to the letters K and S on the nightstand while awaiting the light to come: Kärlek. That meant Love in Swedish, what her mother called Beskyddaren when she stuffed the horse into Ulla’s coat pocket and zipped it up. Keep Safe. And Stumpan. What Peter called her with his big, twirling hugs.

The room began to take on different shades of blue until a thread of light dipped down and touched Ulla. When the rays eventually landed on Beskyddaren’s bejeweled back, they bounced onto the ceiling in a dancing array of colors.

Beskyddaren held magical powers, her mother had assured her. Beskyddaren knows the person you love most in your heart. If you are ever separated, he will bring you back together.

Ulla stifled a sob and kissed Beskyddaren. He was no bigger than her hand, painted bright red with yellow hooves and a green saddle. She sneaked him under the flat, plastic pillow that came with the bed. She was sad to watch the dancing lights go, but she didn’t want the other children to want Beskyddaren for themselves.

People in the room stirred. Like the switch of a light, the noise of irritable children, and weary, grumbling mothers filled the quiet space. They largely ignored Ulla until one of the mothers approached her with a small child, smaller than Ulla. “I’m taking Hattie to the bathroom. Would you like to come with us?”

Ulla looked at Baby. Beskyddaren was safely concealed, but Baby couldn’t stop the snooping fingers of the other children. She rattled her head and shrank back.

The mother pressed a hand to her chest as if she’d been wounded. “Oh, I’m so sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She took Hattie and left.

Ulla clenched her knees and counted the scratches in the nightstand, waited for the entire room to empty before she snatched Beskyddaren, hiked him under her sweatshirt, and scuttled to the bathroom.

Chapter Thirteen

Ulla

Kellee arrived after breakfast had been served in the basement cafeteria. Lumpy, lukewarm oatmeal. At least it came with brown sugar.

She slid into the seat next to Ulla. Hairspray fumes coated the air, and she wore the same bangle bracelets from last night. The bracelets clacked against the table. “Sweetie, I found you a home to stay in. Can you believe it? First thing this morning, the name of a nice couple landed on my desk,” she snapped her fingers, “almost like magic. Turns out there’s some sort of family connection. Do you happen to have an aunt and uncle here in Minneapolis?”