Huda grit her teeth and glanced at the coffee shop. Abdul Amir had taken a seat on one of the benches out front. She had a feeling he knew she was watching, but he didn’t meet her eye—just like the teenager hunched over the table in front of her.

“What a beautiful evening.” She waved her cone toward the setting sun. She tried to forget the terrifying encounter at the Rashid Hotel and trained her gaze on a line of seagulls flapping toward the Tigris, their bodies outlined like tiny shadow puppets against the pink-and-orange sky. On the sidewalk, Baghdadis darted in and out of cafés. Others bargained with street vendors for fabric, costume jewelry, toys, and leather shoes.

“Now tell me,” she said, “how is your sundae? Do you really like it better than pistachio ice cream? You have been eating pistachio since you were a baby.”

“I’m not a baby.” Khalid slumped in his seat. “Don’t call me that. Soon I will be a man.”

“I did not say you were a baby.” She lowered her cone. “But as for being a man, it is well known that a man buys his own ice cream. And, more important, he respects his mother.”

“Going for ice cream was your idea, not mine.”

“I thought it would be a nice family outing.”

“Really?” Khalid fished a pale green grape from his sundae. “Dad must be enjoying his family outing too, seeing as how he’s back there smoking nargilah with his friends.”

She glanced toward the coffee shop and saw Abdul Amir throw his head back and laugh at someone else’s joke. On the table beside her, his sundae was fast transforming into a lake of lukewarm cream, pockmarked by islands of tinned pineapple and a solitary cherry.

A puff of wind traveled down the street. Above the patio, lines strung with tin moons and stars tinkled. A block away, speakers crackled to life. In a minaret of blue and yellow tiles, a muezzin cleared his throat. His phlegmy preparations echoed through the sky.

Khalid tossed his plastic spoon on the table. “I’m going to the mosque.”

“The mosque?” Huda eyed him with surprise. First no pistachio ice cream. Now the mosque. Had a jinni possessed her son? “Where is this sudden interest in prayer coming from?”

“Mom, you might believe in coffee grounds. But I put my trust in Allah.”

Huda’s jaw dropped.

“I’ll meet you back here,” Khalid called over his shoulder.

Bewildered, Huda watched him dart through the traffic and across the road. She sighed and dumped her cone into her husband’s forgotten sundae.

“What a waste of good ice cream.” Abu Issa’s breath grazed her ear.