“It certainly is. Remember the stray cat that wandered in through the window in Turkey?” Mom laughs at the memory as she plops down on the bed, propping a pillow under her swollen feet.

Mom and I, in our travels, never sought out luxury. We were comfortable with the thrum of people and traffic outside the windows of our sparse rooms, which kept us exploring the world outside.

We have chosen this luxurious hotel for its security. The Taliban were ousted but not eradicated. Extremists continue to wreak havoc on the country by planting car bombs, suiting up in suicide vests, and exploding hand grenades at hotels, embassies, and the offices of nongovernmental organizations.

“I wish we could have stayed at the old apartment on Chicken Street,” Mom says wistfully. Her eyes close almost against her will, and she drifts into a light sleep. I do not wake her. It would break her heart to see my rituals—my careful study of the hotel floor map on the back of the door, my testing of the windows to be sure they open, and my evaluation of the space beneath the beds to see how many people it will accommodate. I do not put my feet up until I have memorized the paths to the roof and to the stairwell and confirmed that a leap from this floor might allow us to escape with only broken bones.

Chapter 52

Since I last logged in, a half-dozen new imaging results have come in as well as a flurry of labs. I respond to messages left by oncologists and primary care doctors and answer a bullet-point list of questions from my office manager. I scroll through my inbox one more time and see a new message from Adam.

Aryana, please give me a call. I’ve been thinking about you.

I look up from the computer. Mom, her cheeks still pink with her yoga flush, stands over me with a towel wrapped around her. Her hair is wet from her shower and for a split second I see Tilly. I close my laptop without responding to Adam’s email.

I have been thinking about him too, imagining what he might say if I told him I was in Kabul right now.

“Any fires?” Mom asks.

“All under control,” I say. She knows how hard it is for me to unplug from my work because she’s wired the same way.

We find Clay in the hotel café reading a local newspaper printed in English. Since today is Saturday, the embassy and the government offices won’t be open until tomorrow. Clay has already called an old contact, a linguist named Waleed, and arranged for him to drive us around Kabul.

“Good morning, ladies,” Clay says as he sets down his coffee cup. There is a basket of bread on the table, along with jam and a plate of cheeses.