I didn’t know why I wasn’t supposed to sit there, not exactly. I imagined someone outside, spying on us, a monster with many eyes and hands and legs. And your voice, stretched almost to anger, brought me to my feet. I took a few steps, halfway toward you.

“Better. Put these plants back, and make sure you stay out of the window.”

You got your glass and disappeared into the basement. I went back to my leaf path and made car noises for a while. When I went downstairs to see what you were doing, I took my time, sitting on the stairs and bumping down them one by one. At the third-to-last step, I stood up, swung my arms, and jumped, landing as loudly as I could so you’d notice my arrival. You didn’t. When I thudded onto the basement floor, you were cradling W’s phone to your ear, your free hand pressed against your forehead, your eyes closed. You sat with your feet flat on the couch cushion, knees up under your chin, fingers twisted in the yellow phone cord. You were the opposite of those old pictures of 1950s American teenagers yakking on the phone, chewing gum, their legs limber and draped over the side of an easy chair, their faces filled with contentment.

“Who’s that, Mama?”

You glanced to the side as though searching for the person I’d referred to, put your hand over the mouthpiece, and set your feet on the floor.

“Come here.”

I crawled into your lap and put my head on your shoulder. When you began to talk on the phone again, your jaw moved against my head. You must have been speaking Arabic, because my grandmother didn’t speak anything else, but I only remember in English.

“I miss you, too, Mama,” you said into the receiver. “Swear to God you won’t tell anyone you talked to me.”

Evenings, W let me dress up in her cardigan and shoes and clomp around pretending to be a nurse. Sometimes we played Boggle with rules I made up—like, shake the letter-dice onto the carpet and see who could find the Z first. At bedtime, I would lie in my twin bed, humming to ward off thoughts of the monster beyond the window. W usually went to bed when I did, but one night before a day off, she stayed up past her bedtime talking to you. Your voices came to me through the vent.

She said my father’s name. She said, “No one’s going to take her from you. He can’t. The rules are different here.”

“He’ll take her,” you said. “He’ll take her back to Jidda. I don’t want to go back there.”

“OK, OK,” W said. “Don’t worry. No one’s going to find you here. You want to go to the middle of nowhere? This is nowhere. Stay here.”