The morning of the wedding Muneer has returned from another useless trip. When he wakes up, Mama has already zipped her gray silk dress into a garment bag, packed a blue tweed suitcase, braided and wound her hair in the back, and put on a black-and-white cotton dress with a high neck and long sleeves. She has already had Sara set out olives and cheese and bread and cream on a floorcloth in the living room. She is not hungry, she tells Muneer. She is thinking about God’s plan. But Muneer should eat.

On their way to the car, parked on the street outside, Mama adjusts her black scarf with one hand. He tries to help her into the car, but she pushes him. She lifts the door handle with two fingers and maneuvers herself into the front seat, pulling her cane in behind her and settling it next to her.

The air is hotter in the car than it is on the street. Muneer rolls down the windows and braces himself for hours of Mama’s talk. With one hand, he steers through the neighborhood, its streets lined with apartment buildings with marble façades, tinted-glass doors, and barely used balconies.

She puts her hands on the dashboard and says, “God knows best, but maybe you should stop going to America. Maybe you should live your life here. A man needs a companion. A man needs children.”

Muneer’s mind wanders for an instant. He sees an empty bedroom, the tiny sneakers and cardigans and T-shirts left behind in the closet. He sees his daughter’s face in black and white.

“God save you, don’t drive so fast,” Mama says.

“You have other sons. Let one of them drive you.”

“Say a prayer for the Prophet,” she says. “Calm yourself.”

He breathes in, but he doesn’t slow the car. Air whips past and into the window, blowing his ghutrah about. Her tightly wrapped scarf barely ripples.

The sky beyond their neighborhood is high and blanched pale as an almond. Palm trees and streetlights line the highway, keeping watch over it, separating them from the desert. As they leave the city, they pass a large sculpture of an open Qur’an and Mama begins to quietly pray. Muneer can’t hear the words, but he imagines she is saying, God save Hanadi from the unbelievers. God bless my son with a wife, children.

Mama sifts through her big white purse. She hands a cassette to Muneer and he clicks it into the player. He rolls up the windows and turns on the AC.

Surat Yusuf begins. It is the story of a man who loses his child. The boy Yusuf abandoned in a well, rescued by strangers, raised far from family. The father, Ya’qub, gone blind with grief, thinking his son killed by a wolf.