“How about some lemonade?” Baba asked, breaking the brief silence. “Layla, get us three glasses, please? It’s so humid today, and summer only just got started.”

“It’s been hot alright,” I agreed, while Mama bustled off to the kitchen, her wooden sandals clacking sharply on the wooden floor of the dining room, then issuing a higher, sharper sound when her heels hit the tiles of the kitchen floor. “I’m glad you guys finally have an air conditioner down here,” I added, nodding at the unit in the front window.

“Had to. It was getting to be too much. And upstairs was worse—it was like murder trying to sleep last summer.”

“I can imagine,” I said, turning Michael so he could face my father. “How are you feeling?”

“OK.” He tickled Michael gently, tapping the tip of his nose.

“Come on, Mikey,” I silently begged my son. “Laugh for your grandfather.” But he didn’t—he just stared at Baba confusedly, and Baba at last surrendered by kissing his cheek and then patting the spot with his fingers.

“Just OK?”

“Yeah, you know. I’m on all these pills now. Can’t eat the foods I want—your mom changed the way she cooks everything.”

“I’m sorry, Baba.”

“It’s what I get,” he said, ruefully. “I spent forty years serving cheesesteaks out of a truck, and making some for myself to eat too. My own appetite got me into this mess.”

Mama walked back in, carrying a tray of lemonade and bizir, the dried pumpkin seeds that she salts and bakes herself. I served my father, grabbed a handful for myself, and began cracking them between my teeth.

“Good, no?” Mama asked. “I put some in a bag. You take them home.”

“OK, thanks.” I shifted Michael while I popped seeds into my mouth.

“Where you live now?” Mama asked.

“At the house on 38th Street.”

“With Aliyah?”

“Yes.” She knew, of course, from Auntie Lamis. But she did not want to sound like she was checking on me.

“What you doing for money?”

“Actually, I’m selling some of my crafts. That way I can stay home with Michael.”

“He don’t give you money, that John?”

“He does, but I don’t want to take it.”

She didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was pleased, somehow, by this.

“What you sell?”

“The baskets that you taught me how to make. I’m selling a lot, and making a lot of money,” I lied.

Her smile spread across her face like a rose’s petals unfolding. “That’s good. You a smart girl.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s what I tell Lamis. I tell her, ya Imm Nabeel, Hanan maybe she don’t listen, but she smart.”

“I see.”

“So, John, he leaved you the house? Even after he walk out and divorced you?”