Quotes from Jeanine Cummins

Lydia understands that it's not a disguise at all. She and Luca are actual migrants. That is what they are. And that simple fact, among all the other severe new realities of her life, knocks the breath clean out of her lungs. All her life she's pitied those poor people.

Less than two weeks ago, dirt on the floor in her hallway was a thing that could annoy her. It's unimaginable. The reality of what happened is so much worse than the very worst of her imaginary fears had ever been.

Somebody told me, before we got on the train," he says, "if you fall, if you see your arm or your leg getting sucked under there, you have a split second to decide whether or not to put your head in there too." The young man blinks into the camera. "I made the wrong choice," he says.

This is not the kind of thing that happens, ever. Not even here. Do you know anyone else who's lost sixteen family members in one day?" Meredith glares at him, but he plows ahead. "We have to help them. If the suffering of our friends means

Because fear and corruption work in tandem to censor the people who might otherwise discover the clues that would point to justice. There will be no evidence, no due process, no vindication

Less than two weeks ago, dirt on the floor in her hallway was a thing that could annoy her. It's unimaginable.

stack of buckwheat pancakes he set on the nightstand. I reach for the plate instead of the baby. "These are my favorite," I say, stuffing a towering bite into my mouth. "So good." He smiles at me. "Try not to drip food

San Pedro Sula: second-largest city in Honduras, a million and a half people, murder capital of the world. Out loud, he says, "Ah, you are Honduran." "No," Rebeca corrects him. "Ch'orti'." Luca makes his face into a question. "Indian," she explains. "My people are Ch'orti'." Luca nods, even though he doesn't really understand the difference.

She thought that here in el norte, she'd have to worry more about Border Patrol, about the possibility of Luca being taken from her, and less about random men with guns enforcing their own decrees.

The unsolved-crime rate in Mexico is well north of 90 percent. The costumed existence of la policía provides the necessary counterillusion to the fact of the cartel's actual impunity. Lydia knows this. Everyone knows this. She

It's the bond of trauma, the bond of sharing an indescribable experience together. Whatever happens, no one else in their lives will ever fully comprehend the ordeal of this pilgrimage, the characters they've met, the fear that travels with them, the grief and fatigue that eat at them. Their collective determination to keep pressing north.

way the government clears migrants from the trains in some places, spending millions of pesos and dollars to build those track-fences in Oaxaca and Chiapas and Mexico state, all while turning a blind eye in other locations.