“Oh, but she does,” he’d say, and grin. “She should know the nonsense we put up with to tell the truth.” Later, he’d lift me onto his lap and let me tap his laptop keys. Words, magic words, spilled like starlight over my fingers. That was our special power. Stories and questions. Even when he went on an assignment like this latest one—far away, he said, to a region the government didn’t want him to report about. After, we were going on a holiday, to America! Abu had an invitation to a conference, and they’d saved up enough money for us all to go. We had the plane tickets, the hotel room. Ammi promised she would take me up to the top of the Empire State Building and buy sneakers in Times Square.

For several days Abu would call, right on time, every four hours. Sometimes it was nothing: Ammi would pick up, murmur a few words, then hang up. That was their system: he always checked in with her. But the morning came when I woke and found Ammi, still in her clothes from the night before, her braid loosened like a ragged twig. There were dark, ashy circles under her eyes.

“Abu?” I asked.

She pressed her lips together, twisted around, and made me breakfast—toast sprinkled with butter and cinnamon and papaya slices. Then she took me to school and was waiting by the gate when I ran outside. Her hair had been braided, but now she wore sunglasses that she never took off. She brought me right home and then sat out on the balcony, under the swaying wash, smoking a cigarette. By evening, I heard her talking, fast, to other people. Her voice shot up and down, like the kites we used to fly on the Karachi beach. But she never cried.

And it was only later that I saw her once more, on the phone. She didn’t say anything, just turned away from me, shoulders bowed. I watched her slowly set the phone down.

“Abu?” I asked. “When is he coming back?”

She twisted around. Now there were no sunglasses, just her eyes, bulging and swollen. And a wetness glistening on her face.

“He’s not,” she told me.

I ran from the room, flung myself down on my bed, pulled my knees close. If I shut my eyes, I told myself, he’d come back, and call out, “Good, Rania! You waited for me!” I waited and waited, so long, I fell asleep.