Shaima and I make breakfast together—eggs and buttered toast and instant coffee. I notice lines etched around the corners of her mouth, pulling them down; the tired blots of her eyes, just like Uncle’s. It must have been lonely here for her, like my mother. And then I resent knowing this about the adults, their problems. Just a few weeks ago I was thinking about our graduation party on Rockaway Beach, and the summer, when I was going to stretch out under the gurgling air conditioner and read and train to work at a cute little bookstore.

“You could stay for a few days,” she suggests. “There’s a park where I take the children. It has a pool and is lovely.”

“Thank you, Auntie. I should get back,” I say, but the wish to linger wisps through me.

I let Kamal play with his cousins on the patio for a short bit while we have Nescafé and finish our toast. That’s the only moment when I waver, unsure about what I’m doing. Then I work up my nerve and pull Uncle aside into the study, fishing out the standby guardian form. “Please sign it,” I say.

He frowns. “Not possible.”

“No one will know. We’re just waiting for Ammi to get out.”

“This is just like your mother! Arriving out of the blue, with a strange boy! No chaperone! Shaming our family all over again!” He makes a noise of disgust.

I wait for the anger to pass. “Please, Uncle,” I say quietly. “Be a brother.”

Uncle struggles to calm himself. “All right.” He snatches the paper, swipes his pen across the signature line.

They wave to us on those crumbling steps, all four of them like a photo of a perfect family, the family I thought I wanted. Uncle slipped some folded cash into my palm, insisting, “Take it,” along with a slip of paper. “My mobile number and email. In case you need it.”

I fold it into my pocket, look away.

“I am sorry, Rania. This country, it makes it so hard to be a family.” He sets his palm against mine and it feels warm, heavy. “Inshallah. Maybe someday it will happen.”

As I walk down the path, my vision is thick with tears.

In the car, Carlos looks at me. “Where to?”

I stare at my own hands on the wheel. They seem strange, as if they aren’t a part of me. Then I see Carlos’s lean profile, my backpack slumped at his feet with the form inside. Kamal, grinning in the back seat.

“Wherever you want,” I say with a smile.

Part 4: On the Road

Chapter Twelve