She will have to keep this secret. She won’t tell her father. She won’t feel bad that she convinced her mother not to come.

When her father comes for her, it’s late. They head to his villa. For at least ten years he’s lived north of town, in an area that was probably empty desert the first time she visited. Fouad and Hatim live in the same neighborhood, with their own families. The sea is ten miles away.

Her father’s villa has a big, tiled yard with flowering bushes that overpower her with their scent. Lamees is inside, laying out Broasted chicken takeout. Hannah feels most guilty about not having seen Fadi in so long. He’s a grown man. He lets her hug him and sits next to her at the sufrah, eating fries. His mother pretends to add salt, and he puts one in his mouth.

After dinner, she shows Fadi her sketchbook, the drawings he made nearly thirty years ago. She puts a pencil in his hand and they draw together, a self-portrait of the two of them.

Outside, on a small patio attached to the family room, her father smokes shisha. When Lamees takes Fadi to bed, Hannah joins her father. He hands her the nozzle and she sucks the hot smoke deep inside. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and a plaid foutah wrapped around his waist. His skullcap blends into his white hair. He looks relaxed. He’s going to retire from journalism soon.

“I’m going to leave it to the bloggers,” he says.

She hands the shisha back. He leans elbow against knee with the nozzle in his mouth. He seems calm, at peace. It’s late and the full moon is high in the sky. At least, that’s how she will remember it later. A bright light, quiet talk with her father, the voices of children playing in adjacent yards at an hour when American children would have been fast asleep for hours.

“I miss my boys,” she says. “Fareed and Hamza.”

“Of course you do. Inshallah, you’ll be reunited with them soon.”

Inshallah—God willing. It sounds like a fudge to her, something that should make her worry. Maybe you’ll see them, maybe you won’t. Who knows? God decides.

But for her father, inshallah expresses the most certainty a person can have. Because God is good. And with God’s will, you will be with the people you love.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Family first: Thank you to Andrew Chen who always knew I could do it. My parents and brothers who were there in the beginning and who taught me faith. My grandmother, who is all over this book even though she couldn’t read. My kids, for whom I try to be better every day.