She smiles. “Smart boy.”

Tears well in my eyes and I blink them back. “He is.”

She gets up, touches my shoulder. “My colleagues heard from Carlos.”

I jump up, my heart leaping into my throat. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. He’s in a shelter right now.”

“Oh no!”

“He’ll be okay, Rania.”

“Can I talk to him, please?”

She clasps both my hands. “He told me to tell you—be patient.”

I blink back tears, bite my lip, and nod. I will try. But it won’t be easy.

Gently, Lidia nudges me into the waiting room, where Ammi glances up at me, her eyes flashing with worry. Then she clicks off the light and says to my mother, “Go, Sadia. Enjoy the holiday with your family.”

When we step outside, thick late-summer heat eddies around us. All the offices are shut down, the streets quiet, but for an occasional cab or a delivery boy pedaling his bike.

“So hot!” Ammi declares. “The subway will be a bloody furnace. That’s one thing I didn’t miss.”

“What did you miss?” I ask.

She is surprised. “Why, you both, of course.”

For some reason, I don’t believe her. Maybe it’s because I’m just learning who my mother is, who I am. I keep glancing at her, waiting for some new secret to spring out.

“Have you registered for all your classes?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Which ones?” I tell her: a class on Victorian literature, since I placed out of freshman comp, then math, intro bio, an anthropology course.

“Victorian was my favorite,” she murmurs.

“I know.”

“When I did my MPhil, I wrote on Mill on the Floss. Not considered Eliot’s best, but I loved it. How apt! A brother who forsakes his sister.”

She’s told me this a million times. But I realize she’s giving me a clue about her, her past. She’s speaking to all those people who would not hear her. That’s why she repeats herself. To tell me her story, in her own way.

Before we cross the little park near City Hall leading to the subway, I pause. Kamal picks up a stick that he runs, clattering, across the metal fence.

“Ammi,” I start.

She looks at me.

“What if your appeal doesn’t work?”

“It will work.”

“Ammi. Don’t lie.”

She swivels. “I don’t know, Rania! Maybe I will try Canada, like your friend. I can’t go back. This is all I have. You, Kamal, are all I have. There I am only Naved’s widow. The wife of Fawad who did him wrong. Here I can be anyone.”

“You’re an Uber driver!”

She lifts her chin. “And what of it? That is nothing to be ashamed of.”

She’s right—and the shame burns right through me. We both shift uneasily on the bench.

“About this Carlos boy,” my mother begins.

I flush.

“They kissed!” Kamal chimes.