Mama and I celebrated by walking down to Pat’s and gorging on cheesesteaks, something I loved to do but she rarely did. She didn’t like to eat out in general, but this was a special occasion. We sat on the orange plastic tables on the sidewalk outside of Pat’s.

I loved to look at the photographs of celebrities—all of whom had eaten at Pat’s at some point—lined along the glass windows. Mama enjoyed watching the kids in the park across the street play basketball, showing off for one another and for passersby. Mama gingerly ate her steak in a ladylike way, while I devoured mine. When we returned home, I called Aliyah, Reema, and Hanan and told them the good news before collapsing into bed.

I drifted for a time, then was pulled into a dream. I found myself sitting on a red floor pillow in the middle of a large room with marble tiles. This is where I usually waited for my grandmother to show up. But this time, she never came … instead, as I waited, a door opened in the far corner, behind me. I turned to look, and the figure of a tall man approached me. As he got closer and closer, I could see that he was very handsome, with black hair, olive skin, a smooth face. He sat beside me—the red, embroidered pillow suddenly became big enough to accommodate us both—held my hand and asked my name.

“Nadia.”

“Then you’re the one I’ve been looking for,” he said happily. We sat that way for a long time, just quietly holding hands—no embarrassment, no hesitation, nothing awkward. He never told me his name, and I did not ask. I knew who he was, on a deeper level than name recognition. I recognized him as a part of myself.

The St. Agnes Hospital on Broad Street felt like a nightclub—nurses and aides running around, chatting and laughing, all wearing bright pink and coral lipsticks, hair lifted high and decorously, like a South Philly Eiffel Tower. I immediately sensed that, in my gray pinstriped pantsuit, I was out of place. And yet, fifteen years ago, when Mama and I had been summoned here to see Baba, these nurses had taken me in their arms.

Mama had refused to let me go in the recovery room to see Baba immediately after the surgery. The doctor’s face was grim, and that was when Mama turned to Hanan’s and Aliyah’s fathers and said, “Keep her here.”

“Noooooo!” I’d screamed, darting toward the double doors into which she’d slipped. But they each grabbed one of my arms and held me back.

“La, habibti … la, ya Nadia.” They tried to comfort me, but I was inconsolable, scared because something was wrong with Baba and nobody was telling me.

That’s when one of the nurses approached me—I remember she had a huge chest, like two cannon balls, a small waist, and short legs. Her lipstick was a baby pink, her bleached blonde hair piled on top of her head, her eyeshadow a pasty, matte blue.