Randah says she has not talked about her sister in years. She goes on and on. She says she spent the years missing her younger sister—not knowing where she was. There will never be enough words to fill in the canyon of time, Hannah thinks, but Randah tries. She sits with Hannah far into the night, legs folded beneath her. Randah smokes a shisha, sucking on it slowly between sentences, punctuating her stories with a sound like that of a child blowing bubbles in a pool. Fruity smoke wafts up toward the ceiling. Saeedah often gazed at the sea, Randah says, dreaming about faraway places: Cairo, Rabat, Madrid, New York.

“We always fought.” Two years older than Hannah’s mother, Randah lived in Cambridge, England, for five years in the seventies, while her husband studied for a doctoral degree he has never finished. When she speaks in English, Randah’s lips grasp the vowels like delicate pieces of glass. She doesn’t swallow her l’s and r’s like an American does.

“Our aunties said, ‘Sisters fight, but you fight like enemies.’ They lectured us about the importance of family. They said, ‘Me and my brother against my cousin. Me and my cousin against a stranger.’” Auntie Randah leans forward at her waist, takes a hit of apple tobacco, and touches Hannah’s knee with her free hand. “You know the saying?”

Of course Hannah doesn’t. She sips her Vimto, which looked so ruby-red beautiful when she accepted the glass, but tastes like carbonated, sweetened penicillin.

“Well, those aunties spoke the truth, yes?”

Randah’s words come out throaty, coated in smoke. The way she talks about family—the way everyone here does—is more foreign to Hannah than anything else. She has always had only Mama. To have dozens of people feels like a gift, a gift of love that she never expected. Because she is family, they love her.

At the same time, their love is a pressure, a standard she will have to live up to. She can’t abandon it or pretend they never gave it to her. They are family. She has to return their love. They’ll expect her to stay in Jidda, she can feel that, too, and she’s never intended that as an outcome of this trip. She knows her mind won’t change. Why does that make her feel like a traitor?

“I’ve always wondered why my sister disappeared with you.”

She sucks on her tongue to stay silent, as she does—did—when fighting with her mother. But she and Randah are not fighting.

“Of course she wouldn’t tell you,” Randah says. “Of course you wouldn’t know.” The disappointment in her voice belies the certainty of her words.

Did she think Hannah might have the answer?

“I’m sorry, Auntie,” Hannah says.