A sign plastered to the train wall read: “Keep Philadelphia beautiful.” A picture of a teenager tossing crumbled paper into a trash can illustrated the point. Aliyah immediately looked at the reality of empty soda cans and Tastykake wrappers underneath the seats and at the mosaic of flattened, hardened gum balls that decorated the plastic armrests and brown floors.

She stepped out of the station onto Broad Street. In Center City, where horse-drawn carriages paraded tourists around cultural sights and City Hall, Broad Street was known as the Avenue of the Arts. Here, in South Philadelphia, it was just Broad Street. She walked past St. Agnes Hospital, at the intersection of Broad and Passyunk. She’d been born here twenty-nine years ago, the year that Pablo Neruda took the Nobel. “I’m going to win it too,” she had announced at the dinner table at the age of twelve. Her father came home a week later with an almost-new Sears typewriter.

“From the pawn shop on 6th and South,” he’d said proudly. “No case, and the hyphen key is missing, but it still works real good.”

“Baba, how come I don’t get one?” her brother whined, looking sullen.

“Because Aliyah needs it to write.” Interesting verb choice, she’d thought. Needs.

Aliyah’s mother opened the door to their red brick row house and smiled wanly. “Hi, habibti.”

She looked tired, Aliyah thought, kissing her cheek. Her mother was tall and lean, with the blue-green eyes prized by Arab men that Aliyah had always regretted not inheriting. Instead, she resembled her father, with dusky skin and small, dark brown eyes. She stepped inside, to the living room with the books and magazines strewn over the glass coffee table, the silk flowers arranged in vases tucked in every available space. Her father’s oud leaning its long neck against the corduroy ottoman. She plopped down on the familiar, plastic-covered couch. “When are you ever going to take this stuff off?” she asked teasingly. The blue, French-style furniture had been sheathed in plastic since she had been a child. Only when guests came over—and, even then, only very old or important ones—was the plastic peeled off and the fabric permitted to breathe.

“It’s the only way to keep them clean,” her mother retorted, frowning and bending to the carpet. Taking a tissue out of her pocket, she swiped at a speck of brown dirt, which Aliyah had brought in on her shoes, near the front door.

“We’re all grown up now,” Aliyah teased. “You don’t need to cover them anymore. And the plastic sticks to your legs in the summer. It’s so uncomfortable.”

“So, we can expect to read about them in your next story?” Her father’s deep voice charged the atmosphere dramatically.

“Hi, Baba.” She stood up and went to kiss his cheek, which he received coldly. She stepped back and studied his face. It was a face of lines—the line of his mustache, parallel to the line of his black brows, perpendicular to the line of his elegant, high-ridged nose. Perfect symmetry. “You’re upset with me, Baba?”