Grasping the back of the couch for leverage, Reema pulled herself upright and stood up, out of his portrait.

“Please leave.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I want you to leave now. Please.”

He stood at the door, looking confused. “Can I call you later? Then will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Maybe.”

When the door closed behind him, she walked over to her window, which faced Chestnut Street below. She opened it and curled up on the wide sill. Switching on the small lamp next to the window, she waited for him to appear.

He did—hands stuffed in his pockets, head down as he walked down the street. Feeling guilty, she almost called him back. Just then, he turned around and stopped, startled, when he saw her gazing down at him from three stories up. He took his hands out of his pockets, letting them hang at his sides like pendulums, swinging ever so slightly back and forth at mid-thigh, his face upturned. She suddenly realized what sort of image she presented, framed as she was in the window, illuminated by the feeble light of the lamp. Hair down. Red coat hanging around her shoulders. She reached over, clicked off the lamp, and closed the curtains.

She fell right into bed, still wearing her coat, and woke up before dawn. Sliding on her most worn pair of jeans, she went to the university campus. She lugged her backpack up Locust Walk, lined with gnarled trees and stately brick buildings, and sat under the statue of Ben Franklin on the quad until Van Pelt Library opened. Inside, she searched carefully for the right place before claiming a table in the reading room. Her laptop screen glared before her eyes for a long time, she tapped restlessly on the keys, her brain would not settle, but still she waited for the words to come.

Intervention

Intervention

Reema was becoming a collector of stories, something she’d always imagined Aliyah would do instead. But as her childhood friend reminded her, “I invent stories, for the most part. You record them.” And there was one story in particular that Reema was determined to acquire.

She consulted Aliyah and Hanan first, and they supported her decision. So she called Nadia and set up the interview.

“But I thought your thesis was on immigrant women,” Nadia initially responded. It had been, Reema lied, but her advisor had suggested expanding her scope to the children of immigrants and their experiences with assimilation.

“Sure, let’s do it,” Nadia agreed, and invited her over the next evening. Reema spent the rest of the night plotting how things would progress, wondering if the conversation would proceed the way she hoped.