Ally felt like a traveler gone astray, who’d crossed too many time zones, too fast and too often, who could no longer tell day from night, who didn’t know the right words to say, or how to comfort the woman beside her, rigid with grief.

“I’m so sorry.” She reached for Huda’s hand. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because secrets aren’t for telling.” Huda looked suddenly much older, her wrinkles deeper, her eyes weary as the hour before dawn. She brushed a patch of dirt from the gravestone. “Your mother didn’t understand about secrets either, Ally. That’s how Yusra ended up dead.”

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 24

Many years ago, Huda saw a young woman from her village swept away in a flood. Now as she looked at Ally, struggling to comprehend all she’d been told, she remembered the moment the sandbar collapsed beneath the young woman’s feet, how her mouth opened as the water seized her, but no sound escaped, not even a scream. She waited for Ally to say something, anything, but eventually Huda had to continue on alone.

“Your mother knew about Yusra’s political activities, and one day she let it slip to a mutual friend. That friend was . . .” Huda battled to keep her voice level. “That friend was an informant for the mukhabarat.”

“The mukhabarat?” Ally spat out the word with such disgust, it made Huda cringe. “You’re saying my mother told the secret police about Yusra? Why would she do that, for God’s sake?”

“Not the secret police,” muttered Huda. “An informant. They’re not the same.”

Ally clutched her temples.

“I can’t believe this.”

“I imagine your mother trusted the person she confided in. Maybe they really were friends.”

“Friends?” Ally’s mouth twisted. “Her and the informant?”

Huda stared at the pitiful headstone.

“Not all informants are willing. Most of them want a peaceful life, but then the mukhabarat come calling, demanding otherwise. This friend of your mother’s, this informant, maybe she had to do it to save her family.” She prayed Ally wouldn’t see the blood rising in her cheeks. “It’s complicated.”

“My mother and the informant,” said Ally slowly, “they’re to blame for Yusra’s death?”

“In Iraq, every friendship is a risk.” A tremor surfaced in Huda’s voice. She forced it back down, but it remained just under the surface, threatening to give way at any moment, like a sandbar dissolving beneath her feet. “You never know who might turn you in for something as small as a joke, or an offhand comment. Perhaps it will be your best friend who gets your tongue cut out. Perhaps it will be a colleague at work. Perhaps they don’t want to betray you, but the mukhabarat will harm their children otherwise.”