“Blood runs deep.” She recalled her mother’s words as she drove in the left lane on I-95, passing over the landscape of the row houses along the gleaming Delaware River, then into the industrial area in the southwestern part of the city, her city, her home and roots.

“Hanan, go out of this lane,” her mother commanded. “Too fast. We want to be there alive.”

For some reason, that calm, haughty exterior jangled her nerves, even though Hanan was used to it. She swerved sharply, spitefully, into the middle lane, hoping to unnerve her mother.

“Crazy girl,” her mother said calmly, clicking her tongue against her teeth reproachfully.

“I’ll show you crazy, Mama,” Hanan laughed, swerving back into the left lane, then back again to the middle.

“Why are you so crazy?” her mother asked her in Arabic.

“Because I’m your daughter!” Hanan replied, in English, on purpose.

Then the sirens deafened her, and she didn’t even have to look in the mirror to see the glare from the cop’s flashing lights. She slammed the steering wheel over and over while she pulled the car onto the shoulder.

“Goddamnit!” she shrieked as she shuffled through her purse for her license and registration. In her mirror she could see the cop pull over behind her, descend from his car, and approach her with a slow, superior gait.

“Don’t blame this on God,” her mother started to say, but Hanan cut her off.

“Just shut up! OK? Shut up and don’t say a word.” She lowered her window and waited for the cop, then glanced quickly at her mother, whose grief-stricken expression slowly turned stony and cold. “I’m going to pay for that,” she thought to herself. “Oh, goddamnit.”

They arrived forty minutes late to the airport and found Rola by the baggage claims, watching the conveyor belt attentively. This had to be her cousin, Hanan thought, taking in her pale, thin face, long, glossy black hair, her long, straight nose, similar to the one Hanan had inherited from her own mother, and the thick black eyebrows that had been tamed and shaped into smooth arches. Hanan unconsciously slid a finger over her own unruly brows, her cosmetic nemesis, which grew faster than she could pluck them.

Her mother had already approached Rola and was kissing her cheeks warmly. “How is my sister? How is your father? And your brothers?” she was asking, firing off the questions rapidly. “How is the rest of the family in Ramallah? Do they visit your grandfather’s grave once a month—I told them to never forget to do that! God rest his soul … if I was there, his spirit would never feel abandoned.”

Hanan wanted to roll her eyes, but Rola had wrapped her arm around her aunt and was listening attentively. They barely noticed Hanan, so intensely was her mother chattering, and when Rola finally glanced at her, she looked her over summarily and then returned her attention to Hanan’s mother.

Hanan stood there a few seconds longer, then became suddenly pissed off. She walked away over to a soda machine and got a Diet Coke. When she’d retrieved it and popped the can open, her mother and cousin were heading in her direction, her cousin pulling a large suitcase on wheels and a smaller bag over her shoulder.