“Wait,” she says, her face turned up to the sun, like a flower. He takes it in. Her cheekbones, her earlobes, her widow’s peak, her lips, her chin, the curves of her nose. Muneer feels another surge of love, a happiness he hasn’t felt since he lost her. She goes inside, and they wait. The wave of goodness stays with him.

The neighbor pretends to pull weeds out of her lawn, and Jameel rocks on his feet.

“Should we knock? Should we ring the doorbell?”

“She’s here,” Muneer says, and it’s what he’s wanted, to know where she is. But of course it’s not enough. Worry creeps in. He prays she’s not escaping through a back window.

The screen door creaks open, a sound like heaven. She comes out with a palm-size sketch pad and a charcoal pencil and asks him to write a number. Muneer doesn’t have a number to write. He holds the pencil till it tumbles out of his trembling fingers and onto the grass. Jameel picks it up and writes his mother-in-law’s phone number on the pad while she holds it.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she says.

“What’s your number?”

“You can’t call here.”

Clouds appear when she goes inside. The neighbor slams a door.

Jameel steers Muneer to the car, practically pushes him along the sidewalk, opens the passenger-side door for him, and settles him into the seat. Muneer’s a shell. His organs, his spirit, the blood that pumps through him are left behind, with her.

LA SAMAH ALLAH

At the townhouse, Lulu is tucked into the corner of the white leather couch, her hair spread over the arm and a white coverlet pulled up to her chin. Her shoes lie haphazardly on the carpet. Remote in hand, she watches music videos with the sound off.

Jameel takes the remote and switches the channel to CNN. There was a hijacking over the weekend, and the crisis has not yet ended, but there’s nothing to see but an unmoving airplane on tarmac.

Lulu holds her palm out, waiting for her father to return the remote. He does, and she goes back to MTV.

Diane hovers in the kitchen doorway, drying a plate.

“Well?”

“We found her.”

“That’s amazing,” Diane says. Her eyes are wet and shiny. She wipes them with the dish towel. “That’s my idea of hell, what you went through, Muneer, and now it’s over.”

“Alhamdulillah,” Muneer says. But is it over? He hasn’t found Hanadi. He is finding her.