“My family came here in pieces.”
Valerie* sits at a table on the Kerckhoff patio, folding and refolding the napkin she had just used for lunch. When she is not moving her hands, she holds them carefully, flat on the tabletop and very still. She is calm but guarded, seeming to carefully consider her words.
“My dad came first,” she said. “My brother and I came a year or two later. My mom two weeks after that.”