Joel frowned. “Except . . .”

“Yes, except for that,” said Flora. “But there is more than one type of fun.”

“It’s freezing out there and I might get electrocuted,” said Joel.

“Yeah,” said Flora. “But you’re still having fun.”

Chapter 42

S aif had stared at the pictures for a long time. He hadn’t been able to believe what he was seeing. It didn’t make any sense at all; he felt like his brain was broken. A part of him thought if he could shut his eyes, if he could close everything off, then this would go away. He could unravel everything, travel backward in time, leave this country, go home, start over. A cold sweat crept over him as he remembered Amena suddenly, caught a glimpse, could almost smell the familiar scent of bougainvillea, traffic fumes in the warm night, cooking from the other apartments across the courtyard where they lived, the air heavy and orange; remembered her walking Ibrahim up and down, singing Arabic lullabies to his baby.

The person in this picture . . . He stared and stared.

It was Amena, yes. It was her. He couldn’t deny it. But it couldn’t be. The picture was of her looking straight ahead, staring into the camera. She looked older, but her beautiful eyes were still just like Ash’s, the long eyelashes flicking off toward the sides; mother and son were so very similar.

But this woman . . . who was and was not Amena. She had her arm through another man’s. On her left hand glinted a wedding ring, and it was not the ring of coiled silver that Saif had given her, had brought from Beirut, bought on a medical student’s meager salary. This was a thick dull band that could have been gold or could have been a brass curtain ring for all he could tell.

And underneath her long traditional robes, far more conservative than anything she had ever worn when they had been together, was the round swell of a pregnant belly.

He pushed the photograph away.

“No,” he said. “It’s not her.”

“Are you sure?” said the commander persistently. “Take another look. It’s not like last time, when we simply didn’t know. We have good intelligence that this is who she is.”

Saif could barely lift his shaggy head, couldn’t let his tear-filled eyes even focus on the picture.

“I do not understand what this means,” he croaked.

Quietly, the man placed another picture on the table. She was there again, but this time standing next to someone: a man with a large mustache and a small beard. He was dressed plainly in a thobe but he had a large gun and a sword hanging from his belt.

“This is from a little earlier,” said the man. “We believe . . . We think that it’s a wedding photo.”

Saif stared at her face.

“But she is already married,” he said numbly. Neda put a comforting hand on his shoulder.