thirty-one

“Max,” I say, “I have just made thirty-one thousand screws in twelve hours and walked five miles to find us dinner. This one is your problem.”

By the time Frank Sinatra stepped into the studio to record “Strangers in the Night” on April 11, 1966, he had already been singing professionally for thirty-one years and recording since 1939.

At thirty-one years old, Farmer had dealt with more varieties of illness than most physicians would see in a lifetime.

“I only went to sixth grade, but even I know twenty-nine plus two equals thirty-one.”

Five hundred and thirty-one days after her entry into the US, Luisa has not left detention.