I open my laptop and see a new message from Adam in my inbox.

Hey. Your phone’s going straight to voicemail. I left my thumb drive at your place. Stopped by to try to pick it up but your neighbor says you haven’t been around in a few days. Hope you’re enjoying your vacation. Kindly FedEx it to me or drop it off at my office.

I hear Adam’s voice in my head. I hear him enunciate “vacation” and picture him tapping out one bitter letter at at time. There is a new email signature that links to a website. I click on it and see an image of Adam the candidate in a dress shirt, sleeves rolled up so his forearms are exposed. He’s shaking hands with a Black man in a tan Carhartt jacket standing outside a subway stop. Adam’s wearing his cocktail party smile.

It occurs to me that Adam’s friends all look like him. His previous girlfriends all looked nothing like me. His website says he’s running to stand up for the everyday people of his neighborhood, but I’ve never seen him spend more than a few moments with anyone that couldn’t be mistaken for his brother. I look out the window, recall the Sufi-themed restaurant and the walk to the Ministry of the Interior. I try to imagine Adam dipping a toe into this world.

I’m equally concise in my reply.

Out of country. Will send it when I return.

“What time is it, sweetheart?” Mom mumbles.

“Too early,” I whisper back.

She rests her head on her bent elbow and considers me.

“What were you just thinking about, Ary?” Her voice is throaty with slumber.

Everything. Nothing.

“The azaan reminded me that I’ve forgotten how to pray. And it made me think of Tilly,” I confess, grinning. “I was thinking if she were here, she might have tried praying.”

Mom’s laughter is faint at first. Then it swells and pulls me in. A moment later, the sound of our laughter fills the quiet of our room. She sits up and wipes a tear from her eye.

“Let’s do it,” she says.

“Let’s do what?” I ask.

“Pray.”

“But I don’t remember how.”

Mom stands up in her flannel pajamas and walks to the window to take in the melting dawn sky. She parts the curtains and a pink glow spills into our room and onto the wrinkled bedsheets, the muddied boots by the door, and the headscarves hanging on the backs of chairs.

Mom surveys the room, taps her chin with her finger. I pull the comforter off my bed, spreading it out on the floor. I remember my father once telling me that whether prayers were made on a gold-threaded rug or on a straw mat, they carried the same weight with God.