Hanadi hardly speaks. She listens to her father and nods. Saeedah hears his tinny voice, trying to keep the conversation going, like a cold engine sputtering in Ohio in January. In Jidda, engines die of heat, not cold. When she takes the handset from Hanadi, Muneer is always angry because his daughter won’t speak to him.

“She’s four,” Saeedah says. “She’s watching cartoons.”

“Turn the TV off.”

“She’d yell.”

“What are you telling her about me?”

“Nothing. You’ll see when you visit.”

He comes every three months. They have agreed on this arrangement until Saeedah finishes her degree. Muneer has taken Hanadi to Draeger’s, the ice cream parlor on Van Aken Boulevard, during past visits. But Saeedah trusts Lujayn less than she trusts her ex-husband. Lujayn will goad him. She’ll complain about Saeedah’s refusal to let them drive Hanadi to an amusement park. She’ll insist it’s his right to take his daughter wherever he wants.

Saeedah turns on the TV. Nothing but soap operas and Leave It to Beaver. She opens a textbook, reads ten pages, turns back to reread passages because nothing has stuck in her brain. What if they didn’t go to Draeger’s? It would be better to know now, rather than wait for them to be gone for hours.

After a week of thunderstorms, it’s a beautiful, sunny, late August day. The heat doesn’t bother her. She likes to let it soak into her skin, hoarding sunshine in preparation for the long winter that will arrive soon. But her Beetle, which sits in the driveway because the garage houses the landlord’s rusted-out Chrysler, is blazing hot. The vinyl burns the backs of her thighs.

She rolls down the windows and drives through the leafy shade of the neighborhood, out toward Van Aken. A family of four walks home from the pool, damp towels hung over the crooks of their arms. Two boys race their bikes down the street toward her, veering over to the sidewalk when they see her car coming. Too late, she realizes she might miss Muneer, Lujayn, and Hanadi driving back along another route. She might as well drive all the way. If they arrive home before her, Hanadi will be home, and Saeedah will lie and say … She doesn’t know what.

In the parking lot of the shopping center, she spots Muneer’s white Chevy rental car. She lets the Volkswagen idle alongside the curb. Should she park at the far end of the lot and tail them back? Or leave, satisfied they are where they said they’d be?

Draeger’s glass door swings open, and Hanadi skips out, a smear of pink ice cream underlining her smile. Muneer takes a napkin from his pocket and carefully wipes Hanadi’s face with its edge.