The long flight and time change are catching up to him. It’s three o’clock here—a good time for a nap. They’ve got a pullout sofa for him in the basement. First he asks if he can use the phone to call Lamees. He promises to use his phone card to pay for it, but Jameel insists it’s no problem to use their long distance.

Diane tells him to use the phone downstairs, “for privacy.” He sits on the sofa, which has a set of folded sheets and a towel neatly laid on one end. He holds the phone on his lap. It’s heavy against his thighs. When he picks up the handset, he hears two voices: a deep young man’s and Summer’s.

He hears dissembling in her voice, and over-enunciation, as she says, “OK, see you tonight, Jenny.”

She heard the phone pick up, and she’s covering up. She was speaking to some sort of a John, not a Jenny, he thinks.

The dial tone sounds in his ear. He dials the phone card number and calls Lamees. She’s surprised to hear his voice. He imagines she’s eating late supper with her parents, or watching the news, though she doesn’t say. She’s waiting for him to give her some news.

“Alhamdulillah,” he says. “She’s living in Shaker Heights. I spoke to her.”

“Bring her home,” Lamees says.

The next day, Friday, Muneer racks up a dozen hours watching CNN. The jumbo jet does not move. Its doors remain sealed closed, and the hijackers’ requests remain unrequited. Muneer has nothing else to do. He can’t leave the house, because he might miss Hanadi’s call. Jameel takes breaks to run errands, chauffeur his daughters to camp and the mall, but he doesn’t go far or leave Muneer alone for long.

Muneer holds Summer’s secret in his palm. She barely interacts with him, but he senses she’s not wary of him. She thinks she fooled him, or she thinks someone else picked up the phone. The secret seems harmless enough to Muneer. Don’t all American girls talk to boys? But he doesn’t know how Jameel would view the situation. She is his Saudi daughter.

Anyway, she can’t speak to the boy today because her parents shoo her from the phone when she tries to pick it up. The line must be left open for Hanadi.

“What if she doesn’t call?” Muneer says at dinner that night.

“La samah Allah,” Jameel says. May God not allow it.

“Go back to the house,” Diane says.

The girls are reading fantasy novels at the table, pizza limp in their hands, while the grownups eat roast chicken. Muneer wishes he were home eating rice and lamb on the floor with Lamees, his mother, and his boys. Hanadi, Hanadi. His mind can’t fit her into the scene.