It’s embarrassing to listen to, the way he’s scraping at the edges of my life for something good to say. Eventually, the judge nods. “Bond is set at twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Martin,” I hiss after he thanks the judge. “There’s no way in hell my dad comes up with that much money!”

  “He only needs to come up with ten percent. And he’s already in touch with a bondsman. You should be out of here in a few hours.”

  “What about Noor?” I ask Martin. “Did you hear—”

  Martin sighs and speaks quietly. “Salahudin, you seem like a good kid. Really. But you’re in some deep water. If you don’t want to drown, you’ve got to start thinking about yourself. And about how we’re going to beat these charges.”

  “I get that,” I say. “I’m just worried about—”

  “Your friend. I know. But you might be expelled from school. And you’re looking at nearly eight years in prison.”

  Eight years. Eight years?

  “Keep your head down,” Martin says. “Stay clean. And stay away from Noor Riaz. For your sake. And hers.”

  chapter 44

  Noor

  The next few hours are miserable. And educational. I learn how jailhouse medics can judge you without saying a word. I learn how uncomfortable courthouse chairs are. How a judge can discuss your entire future without looking you in the eye once. How hot a courtroom can get when you’re the one the judge is talking about. I learn that “released on your own recognizance” means I don’t have to wear handcuffs or have a cop following me.

  “You’re free to go.” The lawyer assigned to me is a small, neat woman, with thick glasses and a head of curly brown hair streaked with gray. “Your pretrial hearing—”

  “Ms. Bradley, right?” a smooth voice cuts in. “I’ll take it from here. Asalaam-o-alaikum, Noor.”

  Khadija’s wearing a pantsuit. Her hijab is a sober black. To anyone else, she’d look like a slightly annoyed lawyer.

  To me she’s every hero the Liar ever gushed about. Ms. Marvel. Okoye. Princess Leia.

  “What—what are you—”

  Khadija waves off my public defender—who looks relieved—and walks me swiftly toward the courthouse exit.

  “Toufiq called,” she said. “He’s trying to get Salahudin out, but he didn’t want your uncle coming around.” Khadija’s glance flits to my face before she looks away. “I’ll be defending you now. We are going to figure this out. But—”

  She stops just before the doors. They whoosh as they turn, an endless churn of people entering and leaving.

  “Noor.” She reaches out and touches the bruise on my face. “You’re going to have to tell me everything.”

  I want the drive back to Juniper to be quiet. But Khadija has a dozen questions. And after that, a dozen more. She’s kind—and persistent. She doesn’t let me drift away.

  Maybe she’s right not to.

  Night falls as we drive. She stops at an In-N-Out and orders me a burger and a chocolate shake. I haven’t eaten since yesterday. Still, I barely eat half.

  Because I told her about Riaz.

  “You’ll stay with us.” It’s not a request. “We have an extra room. Toufiq said you could stay with him and Salahudin, but—”

  “I don’t—” The Liar’s hands in mine. His beautiful face. His betrayal. “I don’t want to talk about him. Please.”

  “Will you be okay to see him in school?” she says.

  I forget that somewhere in Juniper, my classmates are thinking about homework and prom and AP tests. Jamie Jensen is picking out the clothes she’ll wear on her first day at Princeton.

  “I can’t stay with you,” I say. “The jail didn’t return my backpack— I don’t have clothes—”

  “I’ve already talked to Brooke. She’s going to bring by some things for you. And you’re going back to school. You have to take your AP tests. Graduate. You have a future, Noor. I won’t let the court take it from you.”

  “Why help me?” I say. “I can’t pay you, Sister Khadija.”

  “Don’t offend me, Noor.” For the first time since she picked me up, Khadija sounds mad. “You think I’m doing this to get paid?” She shakes her head. “Do you know what sadaqa is, Noor?”

  “Good actions?” Auntie Misbah taught me that.

  “Yes. And that’s part of giving, which is essential to being Muslim. It doesn’t matter that you’re not blood, or that I’m Black and you’re Pakistani. I’m doing this because my deen is strong.” Deen. Faith. “Besides, you will pay me back, Noor. By doing the same for someone else one day, when you’re a doctor.”

  She sounds so much like Auntie Misbah that my eyes fill up. I look out the window at the stars, bright out here in all this darkness, and press my forehead to the cool glass.

  “Does Chachu know? About what happened?”

  “Not yet, we don’t think.”

  Small blessings. “My job at the hospital is gone, I guess.”

  “For now,” Khadija says. “But I might need your boss or a co-worker as a character witness. Or at the very least, to rule out the idea that you might have stolen the pills from the hospital.”

  I’m friendly with a lot of the nurses at the hospital. Oluchi even wrote me a recommendation letter.

  “Could—could I go there? Explain to them what happened?”

  “Best not to,” Khadija says gently. “I’ll talk to your boss.”

  Khadija pulls into her street slowly. She scans the darkness. Examines the cars parked along the sidewalks.

  She’s looking for trouble, I realize. For Chachu.

  The lights are on at her house. When we walk in, Imam Shafiq glances up from the couch. He pauses Crown of Fates, a show that the Liar used to sneak-watch so Auntie Misbah wouldn’t yell at him about all the body parts showing.

  “Isn’t that a little racy for an imam?”

  “I forward past the bad bits.” He shrugs, and Khadija kisses him, then smacks him on the arm.

  “You know he made me miss the NBA playoffs for this crap?” she says. “The playoffs, Noor. I was so ashamed. My brothers are texting me the score: it’s game seven and it’s in OT and this idiot is hiding the remote because King What’s-His-Name is freaking out about who his father is.”

  “Oh, come on.” Shafiq pointedly doesn’t meet her glare. “It was a big reveal.”

  Khadija drops her purse and rolls her eyes. “Nerd.” But she says it with love, and when he swoops in to kiss her, she lets him. I look away.

  “You didn’t eat.” Khadija shakes the limp In-N-Out bag. “Let Shafiq fix you up something while I find you clothes.” She disappears into the hallway, unpinning her hijab as she goes.

  “She loves Crown of Fates,” Shafiq says. “She just pretends not to because her brothers make fun of her.”

  I follow him into the kitchen, where he makes me a plate of kadu gosht—lamb and baby pumpkin. The quiet is a relief.

  “I’m sorry for this,” I say. “For coming into your house—”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t see sooner,” he says. “We should have. I should have.”

  He puts the plate in front of me and then gets one for himself. “Only so you have company while you eat, of course.”

  The kadu smells amazing. As good as Auntie Misbah’s. I thought I wasn’t hungry but I destroy the plate.

  “Auntie Misbah used to say that God only gives us what we can handle,” I say. “Do you think that’s true?”

  Shafiq considers. “She was a wise woman,” he says. “She talked to me about you. She loved you. She really did. I think if she saw you now, she’d be in jail—for assaulting your uncle. However . . .” He takes a bite and mulls some more. “I don’t agree that we only get what we can handle. Think of Uncle Toufiq. He cannot handle what has happened—so he turns to drink. Think of the refugees coming out of Syria. The people who lose everything in the floods in Pakistan every few years. Think of the war survivors who die trying to cross the sea. They all bear too much.”

  “Why does God do it?” I say. “Why should we pray? Why believe at all?”

  “Because what religion—many religions, really—offers is comfort when it’s all too much. A reason for the pain. A hand in the darkness if we reach for it.”

  “What if it’s not real?” I say. “The hand? What if you reach for it, and it disappears?”

  “I’m not going to tell you what’s real and what isn’t,” Shafiq says. “That’s for you to decide. But I do think that the hand is what we need it to be. Not what we want it to be.”

  It doesn’t make any sense. The weight of today, of yesterday, is too much. I want a different life. One where my worries are things like math class. High school sports. A life where college is just a stop on the journey, instead of a lifeline.

  But that life will never belong to me. Instead I get Jamie Jensen. Chachu’s bitterness. Auntie Misbah’s sickness. I get the earthquake and the rotting bodies. I get joy for a few hours and then an arrest and a drug charge.

  I get a best friend who betrayed me so badly that my life might never recover.

  I get the stupid brain that still thinks about him, that still wants him, that’s still in love with him, even when I know better.

  chapter 45

  Misbah

  September, then

  The first time Shaukat Riaz brought Noor to our motel, she looked terrified.

  “Thanks for taking her, Misbah.” It rankled me that I was older than him and yet he would not refer to me as Baji.

  I met him a few weeks earlier, when he’d come by to introduce himself as the owner of the liquor store on Juniper’s main street. When I’d greeted him with “Asalaam-o-alaikum,” he’d drawn back, like I’d thrown spiders at him.

  “I’m not Muslim.”

  He’d pronounced it “Moozlim,” like the people on the news. I shrugged, because I didn’t care either way. There are many Pakistanis who are not Muslims. Christians. Atheists. Sikhs. Hindus. They still say salaam. And they still have respect.

  “The only true faith is mathematics,” Riaz said to me that first day. “We should discuss your head covering one day, Misbah, and why you feel the need to wear it.”

  By now he knew better than to mention my hijab.

  “Please don’t speak Urdu or Punjabi with her,” Riaz called over his shoulder, ignoring his niece entirely. “And no Pakistani food—I prefer American dishes and I want her to get used to them.”

  “Of course,” I murmured. When his car disappeared down the road, I turned to the child.

  “Asalaam-o-alaikum,” I said to her. “Thinu pookh lagi heh?” Peace be upon you. Are you hungry?

  She looked back at me with big eyes, and then out at the road, to where her uncle had disappeared.

  “Hanh-jee, Auntie.” Yes, Auntie. I barely heard her whisper.

  So I smiled and tugged one of her braids. “Hai, tou bholdhi kidda sona-inh.” How sweetly you speak.

  I took her to the kitchen, sat her down, and made her a paratha. Salahudin smelled it cooking and came racing out of his room.

  “Hi, Noor,” he said, until I gave him a look and he ducked his head. “Salaam,” he said quickly.

  “Walaikum Asalaam. Um—hello.” She was hesitant, though they’d been in school together for a few weeks already.

  “Want to play LEGOs?”

  He spoke in Punjabi, having realized she couldn’t understand English. They ran off. Salahudin did not act with her like he acted with the other children—so careful and quiet. With Noor, Salahudin was eager, joyful.

  I watched them through the doorway of his room. They built a tower together. When part of it fell with a crash, Noor jumped and folded into a ball, her knees in her chest, her head down between them.

  “I’m sorry,” Salahudin said.

  When I lived in Lahore, my parents’ courtyard echoed with the joy of their nieces and nephews—my many cousins. I was the oldest girl, so I looked after them. Children are like kittens during play. They touch hands and tussle. They laugh and sit shoulder to shoulder and share dirt and air. They grapple for the same toy.

  But Salahudin and Noor played with care. When she hid her face, he adjusted his blocks quietly, until her jumpiness receded. When he flinched at her touch, she was careful to sit across from him.

  They were not kittens, these two. They were small, careful birds, chirping in a language only they knew. A language of pain and memory.

  But they were speaking nonetheless. Speaking when I thought Salahudin might always be silent.

  I looked at the girl. At the way her black bangs fell over her eyes. I listened to her laugh, the only part of her that wasn’t careful. I remembered the fortune teller who told me I would have three children.

  “A boy. A girl. And a third that is not she, nor he, nor of the third gender.”

  The boy was Salahudin. The “third,” the motel.

  And this was the girl. My last child.

  chapter 46

  Sal

  May, now

  Friarsfield, California

  Abu makes it to Friarsfield after borrowing Imam Shafiq’s car.

  He bails me out.

  He tells me Noor is safe and with Shafiq and Khadija.

  He walks me to the car.

  Then he hands me the keys and gets in the passenger seat. Before I’ve even closed my door, Abu’s pulled out his flask and taken a long sip.

  Well. We’re a couple of winners.

  It’s crazy how quickly you can get used to the thing you want. Abu was sober for a day and even though I knew it wouldn’t last, even though he’s fallen off the wagon over and over, deep down, I still thought: This is it—he’s better.

  Now, seeing him drink again, the disappointment is a knife easing slow into my body while its wielder kisses my forehead. Not just a broken promise, but a betrayal.

  “Where—um—where did you get the money for bail, Abu?”

  He doesn’t answer. We drive the rest of the way in silence.

  * * *

  * * *

  Around midnight a day later, the motel bell screams me awake. The raps at the door quickly morph into full-fist thumps. Someone’s pissed.

  My bedroom door is open and I see Abu shuffle to the office. I pull my blanket over my head. I spent all of yesterday cleaning rooms, trying not to text Noor, and waiting to see if Ernst managed to get me expelled.

  Whatever is going on right now—not enough towels, not enough toilet paper, no hot water, Wi-Fi’s out—I don’t want to know. But then, I hear—

  “—at that damn mullah’s house?”

  In a second, I’m on my feet. That’s Riaz’s voice.

  The door slams, but before I can get outside, Abu is in front of me, a hand hovering over my chest. It shakes. He’s sober again.

  “Just leave it, Putar.”

  “Did you tell him where she is?”

  Abu looks insulted. “Of course not.”

  “We need to call Shafiq and Khadija,” I say. “Let them know he’s looking for her.”

  “I will call them,” he says. “Look—” He finds his cell phone and dials as I pace in front of him. A few seconds later, he leaves a message.

  “What if they don’t hear it? What if they’re asleep and he does something?”

  “Salahudin—he doesn’t want to go to jail. The police have already been to his liquor shop asking him about the drugs. They searched it because Noor worked there. He has some painkillers and now he is worried they will say he was dealing drugs, too. Go to bed now, okay? Go on, Putar.”

  I go—but not to bed. I can’t just let Riaz hunt Noor down. I have to do something.

  I quietly pull on my hoodie and shoes. I wait until Abu’s bedroom door closes. The cops haven’t given our car back yet—which is just as well. With my luck, Juniper’s police will be having another slow night.

  Shafiq and Khadija’s house is only a mile or so away. Faster, I think with each jolt of my feet hitting the pavement. Don’t let him hurt her. She’s been hurt enough. By the time I reach the end of their street, I’m so out of breath that I could keel over. And Riaz is already at the door.

  Khadija stands beside Shafiq on the porch. Noor stays behind them, her arms crossed, appearing to listen as her uncle speaks oh-so-reasonably to her.

  But her face is frozen. Her arms coil tighter around her body. When we were kids she got like this sometimes, if the classroom was too loud. If someone on the playground was too rough. Her face changed and she’d disappear into her head, where it was safe.

  “Hey!” I move toward the house. A lifetime of Ama imploring me to respect my elders is at war with a rabid need to get Riaz away from Noor. “You leave her alone—”

  “Ah, here he is.” Riaz appears calm, but I see his anger hanging back, a wolf in the shadows behind his eyes. “The little felon. Haven’t had enough of ruining my niece’s life?”

  “Yeah, I messed up.” It would be so satisfying to scream at him, punch him so he goes flying like a punted football. It would also make everything worse for Noor. “But you hit her. And you’re never going to hit her again, as long as I’m alive and breathing—”

  “No one hit Noor. Noor fell—”

  “You hit her.” My gaze drops to Riaz’s hands. “How else do you explain those knuckles?”

  He balls his reddened hands into fists and turns away from me.

  “Noor,” he says. “Come home. There’s no need for theatrics. This is not one of your little dramas. Brooke and I will sort out your arrest.”

  “You won’t do shit,” I say, my face hot with fury. If some neighbor sees and calls the cops, I’m in for it. But I don’t care. “You’re going to leave now.”