I feel her fingers, twisted light in mine. How much we share—books, words, poetry. Snatches of memory, the good ones too. Our life with Abu. But Ammi wanted me to finish out her story. I can’t do that. Maybe that’s what Carlos and this whole strange summer gave me. How to stay still and find my story. My words. Like the fisherman in Carlos’s tale, maybe mine won’t be heard either. But at least I tried. At least I set them down, gave them to Lidia.

“Ammi!” It’s Kamal stamping his feet. “It’s ho-ot! I don’t want to take the subway!”

Ammi wipes her wet face. “Come, come, you lazy boy. I have a secret for you. There’s pizza after we get out of the subway in Brooklyn. Will that help?”

He grins widely. “Yes!”

She lets me go, takes Kamal’s hand, and walks toward the subway stop. I pause to watch her: tiny, stubborn woman. Even Kamal is determined as he marches ahead. Then I cross over to the long path that leads to the bridge.

At the midway point, where the bridge widens, I stop, watching the ferryboats plow the river. It’s so hot even my wrists are sweating. Heat shimmers off the wooden slats. The suspension lines glint. All of this—the bicyclists whizzing down the narrow path, the water stabbed with diamonds of light, the jammed buildings, and the continent that now I know lies beyond, stretching to marsh and land and ocean—all of it mine too.

By the time I reach the other side, my shirt is damp and crumpled. I head over to Flatbush Avenue, thread through narrow streets, and come to a stop before the bookstore. Cupping my palms on the glass, I peer inside. Even though it’s a holiday, there is Amirah at the front counter, wearing a beautiful red headscarf, nodding at a customer. I step inside, wave. She waves back. The door swings shut behind me.

“I’m here,” I say.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Just as my characters went on a road trip, I too took a journey for this novel. Along the way I was helped by many people offering guideposts and insight into the complicated, fragile landscape of immigration and asylum law. While I have done my best to honor the reality of immigration policies, this is a work of fiction that aims to get at the essence of an imagined story.

This story originated one day when I was riding a subway in Brooklyn and a vision of Rania appeared right before me: black hair, black combat boots, a ferocious teenage poet wanting to gulp in the city. Soon after, I was standing under the slanted ceilings of Bnai Keshet in Montclair, observing congregants figure out how to make the space into a sanctuary.