“May God look upon you with favor, my son,” Hajjeh Um Mhammad repeated. Her sisters too were crying. I stood in astonishment and confusion, almost forgetting that they could see me.

One of his aunts said to the other, “Such a brave son. He figured out how to sneak back into the country just to see his mama… .”

The other sister: “Here from Canada. I didn’t think we’d ever see the boy again. He’s very brave and resourceful. God give him long life, amen.”

Canada? They think he’s living in Canada?

“Hello, Nahr.” His voice sounded raspier than I remembered.

His eyes were red and distant. There had been a time in my life when I longed for this man to return to me, but that discarded girl was gone, and now he repulsed me.

I kissed Hajjeh Um Mhammad. “I’ll be back later to check on you,” I whispered. As I reached to open the door, Mhammad said behind me, “It goes without saying that no one can know I’m here.”

I suppressed the urge to slap him.

Hajjeh Um Mhammad demanded to go home the day Mhammad visited. He had stayed with her until early evening before donning his disguise and leaving. “I want to die in my own home,” she said. Her kidneys were producing very little urine, and doctors said it would not be long before other systems failed.

“While I can still talk, I demand to go home,” she said with as much force as her frail voice could muster.

Her sisters brought Hajjeh Um Mhammad home from the hospital, and we began the vigil. Jumana and I were there when she went to sleep that night, surrounded by some twenty family members, and we were there when her sister let out a long wail at five o’clock the next morning. News traveled quickly as Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s sisters performed the ritual washing of the body.

Jumana, Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s nieces, and I managed the flow of people to the house during the funeral and the following weeks of mourning. I don’t recall who said it first, but people began referring to me as “Bilal’s fiancée.” Thousands came to pay their respects after the funeral, the men gathered daily outdoors on the terrace while the women kept their sacred space indoors—Hajjeh Um Mhammad’s sisters, nieces and nephews, their children, spouses, grandchildren and in-laws; the hajjeh’s own in-laws and their families; her friends and their families; her neighbors (even those whose homes had been demolished and who had been forced to move far away); merchants she frequented in various towns; farmers who delivered her produce; carpenters and plumbers who had worked in her house; Ghassan and his family; other friends of her sons and their families; prison mates of her sons and their families. Everyone was there—except her sons.