I feel a wave of nausea. A sour taste on my tongue. I set the cup down. A new memory lets loose in me, in a long hot strand: Hakim, the chowkidar. Ammi upstairs resting in the dark. She does that a lot since Abu disappeared. A tall man takes my hand. His aviator glasses shine so I can’t see his eyes. I am in the back seat of a car; the man is driving, promising me ice cream. There’s another man next to me. He tells me, “Lie on the floor. Make yourself round like an ice cream scoop.” He laughs like it’s a joke. I do not think it is funny but I do as I’m told. The floor smells of rubber and gasoline. The man’s shoes are turned up, showing mud. I can feel the road thrumming beneath, the twisting and turning. I want to throw up.

The man with the muddy shoes says, “What’s the plan, yaar?”

Silence from the front.

The car stops. My legs hurt when I unwind to the pavement. An ice cream cup is pushed into my hand. Strawberry scoop. I don’t like strawberry! I blink. How did we come back to our building? Inside the gate, Hakim is gone. We are standing next to Abu’s scooter, which has sat there since he went away. A silver flash in one man’s hand. The scooter bumps down. “You tell your mother if she asks too many questions, next time, you won’t come back,” the tall man says. He knocks the ice cream out of my hand. Pink foam-splatter on concrete. I cry. “Get out of here!” Legs pumping up the stairs, so hard, my knees burn. When I see Ammi with her dark worried eyes, my mouth clamps shut. Because she told me. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t speak of troubles. And my nani said to me: Your ammi, always making so much trouble.

I drop the scene like an ugly snake into a memory hole.

Now, in Carlos’s room, the ice cream on the sill is a sticky pink soup. I pull out my notebook, write down, fast, what I recall until my wrist and fingers ache and there’s nothing left. Then I dive into sleep.

The phone vibrates, nearly jumping off the top of the dresser. I push my face deeper into the sweaty pillow. The call can’t be from Carlos because they’ve taken his phone away. I roll over. A buzzing noise.

I snatch up the phone.

“Rania!”

I bolt upright. “Ammi?”

“I’m back! In Brooklyn! Lidia got the release. I told you she works miracles!”

“Miracles,” I say dully.

“That’s great.” I rub my temples. Why did Ammi get released? Why is Carlos gone? Why can’t the world stop spinning?