A few years after their house was built, when I was two and Karim a newborn, Laila got a license in real estate. She became a top agent almost instantly, taking on Arab families that relocated to D.C. as her primary clients. She worked practically nonstop for fifteen years, our basement filling up with little plaques and paperweights that said things like “Super Agents’ Club” and “Number One in Sales,” until she and my father separated. After that she’d take on the occasional client, but the economy was in recession, and fewer properties were being sold at the time. The constraints of financial necessity rendered her obsolete.

When my father moved out, my mother decided to downsize, renting out the house and moving to an apartment in D.C. proper. It wasn’t long before she discovered Cafe Milano, a place where politicians, lobbyists, and the occasional Hollywood actor schmoozed. George Clooney once offered her a seat at his table. “Where are you going?” I would ask as headlights seared through my bedroom window, her friend honking from the driveway.

“Yalla, bye,” she would say, spraying a spritz of perfume and rushing out to the car. I would watch her open the passenger door and climb in, kissing the friend hello as they backed away. She would stay out late, so late that I often thought there’d been an accident, that she’d died, she was dead, my mother was dead. I’d pace the hallway upstairs crying, until I’d finally break down and call the restaurant. The hostess would wander off to find Laila at her table and moments later she was on the line. “Habibti, everything’s fine,” she said soothingly, the hum of chatter and music in the background. “We’re just ordering dessert now. Go to sleep.”

One night, when I called Café Milano, the hostess told me that my mother refused to come to the phone. When I heard the rumble of the garage a few hours later, I came running down the stairs to embrace her, and she immediately smacked me across the face.

I never called the restaurant again, or worried about accidents.

•

One afternoon, just before I moved away from D.C. to New York, I came home and found her sitting at the kitchen counter, a full tray of cookies on the table beside her, the prepared kind from the grocery store. I pointed to the cookies. “What are those for?”

“They’re from an open house for new clients I held this morning.” The tray was full, not one cookie missing. “No one came,” she said, looking up at me then quickly looking away, as though she was ashamed. “Have one, if you like.”