On the afternoon they took my neighbor, my mother had been gone for 13 days. I was scrubbing a crusted pot from another solitary dinner, watching the squirrels outside my kitchen window. One of them dangled from the gutter by a hind leg, head craned at an impossible angle. Another scratched hieroglyphs into the bark of the maple tree, its shoulder blades furless and jutting like vestigial wings. A third perched on the rusted railing—upright on hind legs, tail curled tight around its head like a blindfold, as if it couldn’t stand to see another thing.

          I turned the water on full blast to rinse the pot; the squirrel on the railing unfurled its tail. That’s when I noticed it was holding a green card—rectangular, plastic. That girl’s, maybe, the one from Brighton. The squirrel squinted, scanning the card with almost human concentration. It reminded me of the day before, when a woman on the T had sat beside me, flipping through a book with hands so like my mother’s that I nearly wept. Later, I saw her on the corner of my street. She waved as if she knew me, but her voice, when she spoke—it wasn’t my mother’s. I couldn’t understand her. And when I tried to make out her features, I realized I couldn’t see her face at all, as if it had been carefully erased.

          I know how it sounds, but I wondered if the squirrels had taken it. In the last month, they’d stopped foraging for acorns and scraps. Instead, they carried off small, vital pieces of people. One squirrel tucked a fingerprint into its cheek, folding it like cash. Another balanced a silver house key in its teeth, a fragment of a photograph clutched in its paws.

          The squirrel with the green card turned it over now, scanning the back. My phone buzzed, so I shut off the water. I was reaching for a hand towel when the squirrels scattered and vanished. My fingers were still dripping wet when, under my window, my downstairs neighbor stepped out onto the sidewalk. Same blue dress as always, same pale pink hijab. A grocery bag tucked, like a child, on her hip. She looked jittery, rushed, half-starved.

          Me, I was stuffed. I’d cooked my last box of pasta and eaten it all, chasing off my worst thoughts until my belly ached. As my neighbor skittered into the crosswalk, I reached for the towel again, groggy, but I saw them before she did—six, no, seven men in dark but ordinary clothes, slipping in from opposite sides of the street.

          She swiveled from masked face to masked face. They flashed their badges, and finally she spoke, her voice cracking like a branch. I caught one word—please—before two of the men yanked her backpack, snagging her arm in the strap and twisting it the wrong way. She yelped, almost doubled over. The grocery bag hit the ground. Three oranges scattered, rolling across the pavement like lost suns. Someone clasped her arms behind her back. Handcuffs snapped shut. I didn’t move. I ate my own shouts, but she glanced up anyway.

          She saw me. Last winter, during a blackout, we’d shared my phone’s flashlight in her hallway, pointing and nodding our way through the darkness. Now, I saw we had the same color eyes. I looked away first.

          My phone buzzed again. This time I grabbed it. Blank space where my mother’s constant texts used to be. More calls from my aunt in Port-au-Prince, asking where she’d gone, where they might have taken her. As if I’d tried to find out. As if I’d dared. I barely dared to look out my window again. By the time I did, two of the men were leading my neighbor to a waiting SUV, black and glossy as a leech. The bag lay empty on the pavement, its contents spilled out in a pathetic constellation—milk, tampons, something wrapped in butcher paper and bleeding through. A receipt twitched in the breeze as the SUV edged away, confident and proud, like a float in a deranged parade.

          I almost called my aunt back, but a minute later, the squirrels returned. The dangling one dropped to the sidewalk last, neck still at that grotesque angle, and scuttled to the oranges. It sniffed, then ignored the fruit and snatched the receipt instead, staring at the barcode. Then it climbed another tree, backward, and tucked the paper, efficiently, into the leaves.

          I shut my blinds. Wished I’d never opened them. At dusk, when I peeked out, the bag on the pavement was gone. So were the oranges.

          I hadn’t called my aunt back.

          Truth is, I don’t go outside anymore. Don’t open my door. My mother’s wallet lies empty on the table like a gutted fish. I found it on our welcome mat, still warm from her hand when they took her. Her half-used lip gloss lies nearby, the color of fresh apricots, and her mangled glasses, missing one lens. I’ve heard they don’t let anyone wear wedding rings in detention, but she didn’t have time to leave hers behind.

          The squirrels are still here, though. They never left. Even now, the one in the tree is scratching—not just at the bark this time but at something beneath, something that screeches under its claws. They’re learning, I think, becoming the thieves they’ve seen. Sometimes, though, I picture their nests lined with passports, driver’s licenses arranged like intricate mosaics, birth certificates folded into delicate origami acorns. I imagine the squirrels have built an honest census in the trees, not some bogus database. I long to track it down, find the hollow where my mother sits among thousands of others, each person diminished to the size of a walnut, all waiting to be remembered.

          Every morning, the sound of scratching follows me through the apartment.

          I should call my aunt back, but I won’t.