“She told us she was going to California.” Fareed says the words slowly, as though carefully lifting drinking glasses out of a cardboard box. “You didn’t know that? That was more than a month ago.”

He offers Muneer the shisha again. Muneer says no. Fareed must know Muneer suspects the family of covering up for Saeedah. But at first, Muneer can’t keep himself from pretending he believes Fareed. He feels the stress of playacting along his cheekbones, through his forehead and his jawline. His face wants to break into a grimace of disgust. But he can’t call this man he’s looked up to for years a liar. He searches Fareed’s face for signs of distress. Perhaps the casualness of his clothing is a sign—perhaps his grief has kept him from getting dressed.

Muneer hates to be so charitable. He wants someone to blame. If Saeedah was going to California with his daughter, someone should have told him. Randah should have told him. Lie or omission, they have deceived him.

A young woman in a black headscarf and floor-length cotton dress comes in with a tray of sodas. Muneer was rude to say no to the shisha. To atone, he takes a glass, though he doesn’t want it.

“Can you learn where they are?” Muneer’s voice chips at the edges. “Saeedah can do what she wants, go where she wants. I want my daughter back.”

“Young man, I want the same thing.” Fareed sets down the nozzle and presses his fingers into the bones beneath his eyes. “We have prayed. We have spoken to private investigators. We have spoken to the ambassador in Washington.”

“Thank you, Aminah,” Fareed says as the woman leaves with the tray.

They’re alone again. The privacy emboldens Muneer and dissolves his mask of respect for a man who raised a daughter who would run away from her family.

“It’s not possible you don’t know where your daughter is.” He senses how wrong the words are as they leave his mouth, but he doesn’t regret saying them. “You might not have spoken to her, but she must call her mother.”

The shisha bubbles as Fareed sucks. In Muneer’s eyes, the smoke he breathes out is an obfuscation.

“We’re devastated. But at least we must believe your girl is with her mother, and that is a good place for her to be.” He touches his heart. “As I said, we have an American looking for her. But there’s no reason for the world to know they’ve disappeared. We’ll find them soon, and this situation will be like nothing.”

Muneer wishes he hadn’t twice said no to the shisha. He inhales Fareed’s fragrant smoke. He needs something to soothe his nerves.

Fareed laughs, a sound like a warning. What he is about to say is not what Muneer wants to hear.