“Tell me now! You know I can’t wait,” I said.

Our car interrupted a children’s game in the street, and one of the boys cursed profanities at us.

“We’re very sorry,” my brother yelled back. “I’ll take another road next time.”

From the side window I could see the boy’s surprise. My brother had a way of disarming people. “It’s okay!” the boy screamed back, wanting us to hear his forgiveness.

“Impressive,” I said.

“Yes, well. You’re the one who taught me the power of reacting opposite to expectation.” He tilted his head in a sly grin. It was the lesson I had learned from Um Buraq.

“Tell me the news,” I said, but he was already pulling up to our building. Piles of uncollected garbage greeted us on the street, a far cry from the pomegranate, orange, almond, and fig trees I had become accustomed to seeing in Palestine. Even in the poorest, most crowded Palestinian neighborhoods, people made a point of planting trees wherever possible, even if only in front-door pots or on rooftops.

A few neighbors walking by embraced me, their children running ahead to alert my mother. Most had been our neighbors in Kuwait who were likewise kicked out when the Americans came. It was that continuity that made life in Jordan bearable.

I rushed to kiss Mama’s hand where she waited in the stairwell with more neighbors. Sabah stood behind her, a baby in her arms, waiting to hug me. I missed her too. Sabah had married shortly after our exile from Kuwait and gone to live in Zarqa, about an hour north of Amman. But now her husband had gotten a job in Amman, and they were living nearby.

Sabah and my mother held me tight as we walked up the stairs to our apartment, neighbors and children trailing in our wake. Sitti Wasfiyeh was waiting inside. I bent to kiss her hand three times, then her forehead and cheeks, inhaling her scent—a mixture of old-woman smell, her homemade olive-oil soap, and the cardamom she put in her morning, noon, and evening coffee. “I missed you so much, habibti,” she said, tears rolling down her face. My grandmother had never uttered anything so tender to me before. “I missed you, too, Sitti,” I said.

Mama and Sabah brought out plates of food, but Sabah couldn’t stay to eat. “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow after I feed the baby. You’re spending the day with me. Don’t you dare make other plans,” she said, kissed me, and left.

It was wonderful to be with my family again. Mama had lost weight, but she looked radiant and somehow younger. Sitti Wasfiyeh too was thriving physically and uncharacteristically joyful. The interaction between her and my mother was different, kinder and gentler. It seemed much had changed in the nine weeks of my absence.

I turned to my brother and whispered, “Tell me the news!”