She stood up from the window, when she heard his bedroom door open and the bathroom door close, and got a toothbrush she had hidden in a drawer so she could brush her teeth in the kitchen sink. She brushed fast, but then she heard the shower, so she had plenty of time. She made coffee. She put frozen breakfast buns in the oven. Ghazi was still in the bathroom, so she took a look at her hair and saw it looked wild: perfect. She licked her finger and erased yesterday’s mascara that had clouded under her eye overnight. Finally she heard the bathroom door. Then his door. The apartment smelled wonderfully of molasses.

She had two mugs on the table when he came into the kitchen. “Coffee?” she said. His hair was still wet and his goatee trimmed.

He looked down, really blue. He nodded without looking at her. She poured and pushed a mug toward him. “How’d you sleep?” she asked.

“Not good.” She brightened, hoping she was the cause of his sleeplessness, but then he added, “I don’t sleep good anymore. Not ever.”

He took the coffee into the living room and turned on the TV.

Disappointment scoured her out. She poured her own coffee so sloppily it splashed onto her hand. Good, she told herself, good, wake up. Wake up. She could hear him skipping from channel to channel with the remote. When she got out of the shower, he was still doing it.

Her hair was just about dry when the phone rang. She was not dressed entirely, so she yelled to Ghazi to pick it up.

When she came into the living room, the television was off. Ghazi was speaking Arabic on the phone. She sat on a chair and tried to tell what he was saying. Couldn’t. Then he said “Mourad” and almost yelled the next few words: “You call your father!”

“No!” Mourad shouted back.

“Why not?”

“He cannot know I cannot find him.”

“Mourad, I am sure Aziz is talking to your father, and if you tell your father you now have a phone again, that is the answer. He will tell Aziz; Aziz will come here. Simple.”

“What if he is not talking to our father?”

“He is.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.”

“You do not know, then.”

“Why wouldn’t he? He talked to your father—shit—all the time.”

“What if he is not able to call?”

“Mourad, you are not making sense.”

“Is Heather there?”

“Of course she’s here.”

“Give the phone to her.”

“Mourad.”

“I want to talk to her.”

Heather was standing a few steps away. “Hey,” Ghazi said angrily. “Talk to this jerk.”

He got up and went out the front door. Heather sat down on the sofa.

“Baby,” she said to Mourad. “Where are you?”

“I am in New Jersey.”

“New Jersey? Mourad, please, please come home.”