Certainly they’ll see Saeedah. She’s a beacon of envy. She’s meters from them. But they turn their attention to crossing the parking lot, avoiding a tan Corolla whose driver seems not to see them at first. The car brakes suddenly, and Saeedah’s heart skids in her chest. Hanadi is fine, sandwiched between her father and her aunt, not noticing how they have shielded her. Saeedah smells the rubber of the Corolla’s tires, sees the driver’s stricken face and his shock at having nearly hit a family.

She steps to the curb and balances on its edge on the balls of her feet. Muneer, Lujayn, and Hanadi climb into the Chevy. Its engine growls and it begins to back toward her. It pulls up and passes her, so close she could tap on the window, but she is as invisible to them as a jinni.

GETAWAY

1975

Mama: You stole me. March 25, 1975. My fifth birthday. In broad daylight. You carried me to the car, in my purple giraffe pajamas and suede saddle shoes, through early-spring snow. I put my head on your shoulder. The flakes settled like sifted flour over the hard-packed, dirt-crusted snowbanks. The car’s seat was joltingly cold, the window icy against my fingers. The Bug was noisy, too, backfiring and sputtering. A terrible getaway car.

“This,” you said, and the s went on forever, “is a terrible car. Some people say Beetles are reliable. Hah. A little snow and it falls apart.”

Some people. Were you talking about my father?

I know that you stole me. If we had been moving like normal people do, the car would have been loaded full, the windows obscured by boxes and garbage bags and an overflowing laundry basket. You would have been forced to use the side-view mirrors because you couldn’t see over the crap stacked up in the back. But we weren’t moving, we were running. We had one light blue hard-sided suitcase and matching vanity, as though we were heading off for the weekend.

Once in a while, I’ll have this flash, and an object from the past will be illuminated in my mind. I’ll read about some returning seventies trend—culottes, ponchos, hip-hugger jeans—or I’ll be in a thrift shop and see a wild-eyed baby doll with a plastic head and oblong cloth body, and I’ll remember something we left behind. I’ll wonder, What happened to that oil painting of a crying boy?