In the dark night, I heard you calling me, and W whisper-shouting, “She’s up here. Let her sleep.”

When I woke the next morning, I was staring at the burgundy ceiling of W’s car. Classical music played on the radio. Potted ferns crowded the seat next to me and the foot wells, and W’s afghan was wrapped around me several times. I wriggled out of it to sit up.

You clutched the steering wheel like a life preserver. The bench seat beside you held our suitcase and vanity and more plants. We were on the freeway, semis passing us on either side, and as they passed, their absence revealed an overcast morning, clouds so low they seemed to erase the sky.

“Where’s our car, Mama? Where’s W?”

“Let me drive. I’ll tell you later.”

“We took her blanket. And her plants. The police will catch us for stealing.”

“You like the plants. I brought them for you.”

My sobs burst out of me.

“W gave the blanket to us, Sammy. And the plants. She wanted us to have them.”

“You’re lying. You stole them.”

“We can’t take them back. We have to go.”

“I don’t want this stinky blanket. It smells like cough drops.”

I opened the window to the cool, early morning air and stuffed the afghan through it. The blanket plopped onto the cracked, potholed asphalt and lay there.

I felt strong, as though purposefully leaving something behind was like Popeye’s spinach, pumping my muscles up. I punched the back of the passenger seat a few times, until my muscles deflated, and I was back to being regular me.

The sky was pale; the day was going to become sunny and warm. We would see fiery rhododendrons at a rest stop on the interstate, dogs on leashes yipping crazily at the joy of being let out of the car. For now, you kept your eyes straight ahead on the drab gray road.

“Close the window,” you said.

I tried to tell you to stop the car and go back—back to the blanket, back to W’s house, back to where we’d started—but the words flew out the window and disappeared on the relentless wind as we hurtled forward to a place neither of us knew.

DESERT SHIELD

1990–1991

YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY

Hannah pulls the Fine Young Cannibals cassette from the shelf and remembers she has nothing but dollars in her purse. She should go ask Muneer for riyals. Put the tape back and walk from the music shop to the Safeway, where he and Lamees are buying groceries. Or better yet, come back another day with her own money, converted into the correct currency. Either option should be easy, as sending a letter to Malik or calling her mother should be easy.