Ammi always told me how much they’re worth—That one’s three mil, she’d say. And look at that one. It’s got two rentals so they’d clear nine thousand easy, that covers a lot of your mortgage. Though Sunset Park you can get one for a million and a half. That’s where the white people are coming, so it’s a better investment.

“A two-family,” she’d murmur. “Yes, that’s the way to go.”

“Uh-huh,” I’d mumble.

Sometimes I think that’s what frustrated Ammi the most: that she couldn’t get a hold of something and make it grow. There was a time when she signed on to an herbal supplement scheme—bottles and bottles were stacked up in our closet while she tried to sell it to everyone we knew. In the end she was out several hundred dollars, and Kamal and I had to go without new sneakers for a season. But then she was on to the next idea—Uber, while studying to be a real estate agent.

When I think of those Sundays, when we’d return, to our neighborhood, our building, with its scrappy garden in the front, and our little apartment, where the hallway smells and the bulbs blink over the bathroom sink—maybe we weren’t running toward her dream but also away from something I have yet to figure out.

Salim Uncle is kind. Once the children are put to bed and we have figured out the sleeping arrangements—Kamal will sleep in Maira and Roshaan’s room, Carlos on the living room sofa—he takes me into a small room off the kitchen, his office. It too is filled with boxes—all that’s left is a black desk and big vinyl chair, his computer, and a couch where I’ll spend the night. I sit on the edge, still trembling, shock coiling through me.

“I am so sorry, Rania, that I am the one to tell you.”

He drops into his chair and shifts toward me, hands bunched between his knees. Now I see: What I took for rumpled disarray is someone confused by emotion, easily tugged by others.

“Your mother was married young,” he begins.

“To Abu?”

“No. Fawad.”

I look at him, confused, before he continues.

“The families have known each other a long while. Fawad had been abroad to study, then Dubai, then back again. Sadia had everything—a big bungalow. Servants. A good life.”

“A good life,” I repeat faintly. What does this have to do with Abu?

“I was younger so I don’t remember much of it, mind you. But people tell me Fawad changed. He was legendary—quite the party animal. He’d be the last on the dance floor. He wanted to be a rock musician! He sent away for all kinds of expensive electric guitars. After he married, though, he became more”—he seems to be groping for the word—“conservative.”