To the friends who have read drafts and who provided the support I needed to make it to the finish line, especially on dark days, thank you: Natalie Moon Brown (for your ongoing love, humor, and patience with my equine nature), Jen (for all the rotisserie chicken days), Tony Tulathimutte, David Busis, Ariel (who has been there through both weeps and laughs, and always keeps me from becoming boring), Kristen (I am forever obsessed with Scarsdale), Caitlin Roach Orduña (especially for the Megabus moments), Lisa Wells, Catherine Blauvelt, Callie Garnett, Amber Fares, Mallika Rao, Bilal Qureshi, Hope McClure Sypert, Farah Hussein, Sandra Reishus, Jake Rollow, and Alyse Burnside. To Eve-Alice Roustang-Stoller. To Libby Flores, for providing me with a stable home in which to finish this thing, as well as a new friendship. To Ani Lhamo. To Chantal, for lifelong friendship, love, and compassion in the face of all this, and for gently but humorously knocking reason into me whenever I needed it (“Why would she?!”). To Nate Nash. To Anne, also for lifelong friendship. I don’t know how to convey my love and appreciation for you, it’ll certainly take more than a bottle of Josh wine. I hope we can sing to Captain together forever.

To Gabrielle, for whom I will always hold a very special place in my heart. Though our story did not turn out the way I’d imagined and hoped, I am grateful for your faith in this book, and in me as a writer. I hope you know how much I believe in you, too.

Most of all, to my family. To my brother, Zaid, who called me every day over the last year, the hardest year of this marathon, just to check on me. To my father, Fawaz, a.k.a. Winnie. And of course, always, to my mother, Randa Masri.

About the Author

© Carleen Coulter

ZAINA ARAFAT is a Palestinian American writer. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Granta, The Believer, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, VICE, and NPR. She holds an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and an MFA from the University of Iowa and is a recipient of the Arab Women/Migrants from the Middle East Fellowship at Jack Jones Literary Arts. She grew up between the United States and the Middle East and currently lives in Brooklyn.