“Sir?”

  A nurse enters, tall and dark-haired. “Your, ah—father. I think he might need you.”

  My father, I want to say, is not the one who needs me right now.

  “I’m good.” I turn back to Ama, but the nurse reaches out a hand as if to touch my shoulder. I pull away before she can make contact, and she raises her eyebrows.

  “Honey, I’m sorry, but your dad can’t be here. He’s upsetting patients in the emergency room. Speaking some other language—”

  “That’s Punjabi,” I say. “His native language.”

  “You need to deal with him. Or we’ll have to call the police.”

  Noor enters, catching the tail end of the conversation.

  “I got the keys from your dad,” she says as the nurse leaves. “Imam Shafiq brought your car.”

  The young imam/engineer who leads Juniper’s tiny mosque is Ama’s friend. But I didn’t call him. “How—”

  “I called him earlier. He had to leave, but, um, your dad probably needs a way home.” Noor shifts from foot to foot. I thought she didn’t know how bad it’s gotten between me and Abu. But I guess she’s figured it out.

  “I’d take him, but Auntie only gave me a couple of driving lessons before . . .”

  Before I shouted horrible shit at Noor and she ran away like any sane person would.

  “I’ll take him,” I say. Goddamn Abu. I need to be here with Ama. I need to make sure she’s okay. But he’s going to be a mess tonight, and I don’t want Noor dealing with him—or him harming himself. “I’ll be back, though. Just . . . stay with her. Please.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Ama speaks up. “Take your father. Give him water. Put him on his side. And don’t be angry at him, Putar. Please, he—”

  “Don’t defend him, Ama.” I walk out before I say something I’ll regret.

  Dr. Rothman is in the hallway, and I catch him. “Should I bring her anything?” I ask. “Medicine or—”

  “She’s not in pain,” he says. “We’ll be moving her to a room soon, so she can complete her dialysis comfortably. Pajamas, maybe. Toiletries. And—” He checks his clipboard. “I see we don’t have an insurance card on file—”

  Shouting drifts through the doors to the ICU. I recognize Abu’s voice.

  “I’m sorry.” I’m unable to meet Dr. Rothman’s eyes. “I—I should go.”

  The emergency room, down the hall from the ICU, is curiously silent. Other than my father, snarling at two cops watching him warily from the door.

  “Sir—” One of them, a brown-haired woman, sounds tired. “Just step outside with us, okay? There’s no need to—”

  “Haramzada kutta!” Dog of a bastard. Abu’s less of a wrathful drunk, and more of a sleepy one. I’ve never heard him curse in English, let alone Punjabi.

  He sees me and stabs at the air like a sloshed Perry Mason. “That’s my son. He’ll tell you. My wife is inside. I need to go to her, but no one will let me—”

  Even upset as he is, Abu’s accent is the gentle swell of an ocean. I never noticed it until two years ago, when I put him on speakerphone at the grocery store. As he spoke, I stopped dead in the aisle, because he sounded suddenly unfamiliar. His r’s rolled and he lingered on l’s and d’s, making every word more poetic.

  But these cops don’t care about that. To them, he’s a shit-faced foreigner who reeks of despair.

  Everyone in the waiting room stares. Ailments and misery aside, watching someone even worse off is a relief. Or entertainment, at least.

  My skin goes prickly and hot at those stares, and though I want to muzzle Abu, I feel weirdly protective of him, too. Hunched like he is, with his hands fisted, he looks so small.

  “Abu.” I put myself between him and the cops. “We need to get home. Ama wants us to go home.” I turn to the cops. “I’m sorry—he’s upset because my mom is sick.”

  “I know him.” The cop with short blond hair and a mustache looks Abu over. His name tag says MARKS. I wish I knew what he was thinking. But maybe it’s better that I don’t. “We’ve had him in the tank before.”

  For a moment, I imagine Abu in an army tank wearing camouflage. The image is so bizarre that I laugh, a weird, shrill sound I’ve never made before. Then I realize what the officer means—a drunk tank. My laughter dies.

  Marks’s face changes from neutral to irritated.

  “I’ll just—I’ll get him home,” I say. “Abu, come on.” I don’t want to, but I take his hand. He’s skin and bones, and I remember when he wasn’t. When he could throw me up onto his shoulder like I was a feather pillow.

  “No—” He jerks away, arms windmilling. When his hand smacks my face, I think at first that Marks has hit me—that’s how unlikely it is that my father would ever lay a finger on me. Then I realize what’s happened. It stings like hell and my eyes water—even as my panic rises. A cop seeing my dad hit me is not what we need right now.

  It will be fine. I wipe my eyes. In a few hours, you’ll be writing about this in your journal because it will be the past instead of the now, and everything will be fine.

  “Oh—oh no. I am so sorry, Salahudin.” My dad looks stricken, but it’s not him I’m focused on right now.

  Marks steps forward, his voice steel. “Sir, that’s enough. Step back, son—”

  “He didn’t mean to,” I say quickly, trying to keep this situation from spiraling. Something about how I’m talking reminds me of Ama and I cringe at the thought. “It was an accident. Please trust me—it’s not who he is.” Even Ama’s whacked me with a spoon if she thinks I’m being disrespectful. But never Abu.

  The other officer—Ortiz—puts a hand on her partner’s arm. This time, when I grab Abu’s hand, he doesn’t fight me.

  “We’re going, okay?” I tug him out, and he follows, muttering.

  “Sorry, sorry, Putar, I’m sorry.”

  Marks shakes his head. “Get him home,” he says. He and Ortiz—and the rest of the emergency room—watch us as we walk out into the frigid desert night.

  My ire rises again because I can taste their disgust. Their judgment. I want to turn around and scream at them. This isn’t who he is. This isn’t who we are.

  We weren’t always like this.

  chapter 7

  Noor

  Auntie closes her eyes after Salahudin leaves. Her fingers twitch as she sleeps. She moans, like she’s in pain. An hour ticks by. Then another. I dig out earbuds. It took two months of extra hours at the store to pay for them. Chachu doesn’t exactly believe in fair wages. But they were worth every penny.

  Auntie can’t hear, but I play the artists she loves. Reshma and Masuma Anwar. Mohammed Rafi, who was her father’s favorite when he was little, and Abrar-ul-Haq, who was hers.

  I check to see if Sal has called—but he hasn’t and I immediately regret looking at my phone. I have twenty-five unread texts and ten missed calls. Every single one from Chachu.

  Emergency at hospital, I finally text him. Had to stay late.

  Auntie Misbah murmurs and blinks awake, so I turn off my music.

  “Salaam, Auntie.” I take her hands carefully—touch can be jarring to a patient when they wake up in the ICU.

  “Pani,” Auntie whispers. Water.

  A cup sits on Auntie’s bed tray. I bring the straw to her lips. She manages a sip, but her throat isn’t working right.

  “Tou—Toufiq.”

  “He’s home safe,” I say. “Salahudin will be here any minute.” My hands shake, but my fear will only upset Auntie, so I sit up and make myself smile.

  “You look good, Misbah Auntie.” I brush back the hair that’s escaped her hijab and dab the sweat from her forehead with a tissue. “I wish you were home. I’d make you a cup of tea and we could catch up on Dilan dey Soudeh.” It’s her favorite drama. Matters of the Heart. “What happened in the last one?”

  She responds so quietly, I have to lean forward to hear. “Akbar’s sister told him that Saira’s degree is fake,” she says.

  “What? That’s garbage! Saira went to Oxford! And she still loved him after he lost everything!”

  “I don’t know what happened after,” Auntie whispers. “No fun to watch without you.”

  “We’ll have a proper party when you get home, okay?” I say. “Endless cups of chai with too much sugar. Did I tell you I took your advice and played all of Nach Punjaban at the store last Sunday?”

  She smiles, and I’m relieved to see the color in her face. “I eat my words,” I say. “Abrar-ul-Haq is not a hack. ‘Wangan Chappan’ made me cry. And ‘Tere Rang Rang’ is a classic. In fact—”

  I clean my earbud with a wipe and tuck it into her ear. The strains of sitar and thudding of dholak come through and she closes her eyes. Down the hall, a machine screams out. Someone’s vitals just went crazy.

  “Code Blue,” a cool voice sounds over the loudspeaker, drowning out Abrar-ul-Haq’s singing. “ICU, Code Blue.” A dozen people rush by. Please let whoever just had a heart attack make it, I pray.

  “Noor.” Auntie offers me the earbud and I turn off the music.

  “You don’t belong in Juniper, meri dhi,” she says. My daughter. She’s called me that since I met her as a six-year-old, unable to speak or read English, mourning a family whose faces I no longer remember. Auntie Misbah didn’t even know me, and she called me “dhi.” It’s just how she is. “You are better than this place. More than this place.”

  “I—I’m trying, Auntie,” I say. “I applied to a bunch of colleges. I’m scared I won’t get in. I feel kind of lost—”

  It seems a stupid thing to say to someone in a hospital bed. But she just looks at me, her gaze intent.

  “If we are lost, God is like water, finding the unknowable path when we cannot.” She squeezes my hand, her own cold. The skin feels thin like an old person’s, even though she’s so young.

  “I know you are angry at Salahudin,” she says. “But you should be angry at—”

  She works her mouth, unable to speak. Her eyes flutter. Her blood pressure machine beeps rapidly. Her number drops. Slowly, at first. Then faster.

  “Nurse?” I release Auntie’s hand for a quick second and step into the hall. “Nurse!”

  But the station is empty. Juniper Hospital isn’t well staffed, and the Code Blue will have most of the doctors tied up. Shit. I check my phone but Salahudin still hasn’t called.

  I type a message quickly.

  WHERE ARE U, GET TO THE ICU NOW.

  Another of Auntie’s machines goes off.

  “Noor.” Auntie’s eyes are sunken in. I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Something is happening. Something bad. Something beyond me. The air is full and angry.

  “Noor.” All she can say is my name, but there’s so much in it.

  “Auntie—you’re going to be fine. Let me get the doc—”

  Her vitals go crazy. Her blood pressure tanks. Her oxygen sensor blares. “Doctor,” I call over my shoulder because I don’t want to let her go. “Doctor!” I get up, still holding her hand, and holler out the door. “I need help!”

  “Noor.” It’s a chant. “Noor.”

  “I’m here, Auntie Misbah.” Stay calm, Noor. Calm. “You have to stay with me, okay?” I say. “Stay with me so you can show me more great Punjabi albums, and so we can get Salahudin to finally drink chai, and—”

  I fumble for a prayer, one she taught me because Chachu refused to. I say it aloud, though I’m mangling it because I’m panicking. I’m not even halfway through when she squeezes my hand so hard that I think for a second everything will be fine. No one with that kind of grip could die.

  I squeeze back, trying to give her strength. Trying to repay her for all that she’s given me. Take a few years for her, God. I don’t need them.

  “Noor,” she whispers. “For—forgive.”

  “Auntie Misbah? Auntie.”

  Nurses and doctors pour into the room. They push me out. As I look back at her, her eyes stay fixed on my face.

  But she doesn’t see me anymore.

  PART II

  Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

  of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

  The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

  —Elizabeth Bishop,

  “One Art”

  chapter 8

  Misbah

  January, then

  “What do you like to do?”

  Toufiq’s hands moved restlessly, clasping, unclasping, fiddling with his chai, pulling at his tie. He was handsome, long lashes framing midnight eyes, with the high cheekbones of his quiet father, a police officer and the only member of his family I had met so far. His beauty would have been intimidating, but his hands told the truth.

  “I like to read,” I told him, glancing out the door at my brother, Faisal, our escort for this little outing. Thankfully, Faisal was a terrible chaperone, more interested in his new Suzuki than his sister’s izzat.

  “I like collecting stories,” I said. “I’d love to own a restaurant or an inn. To gather the stories of everyone who passes through. But . . . my mother prefers that I marry.”

  “Why not do both?” Toufiq tilted his head and smiled. “Gather stories and marry?”

  His eyes turned up at the corners, but he was sad. I felt it. Perhaps if we married, the years together would reveal why. We would learn each other’s secrets. A thrill went through me at the thought of him discovering me—the real me. The Misbah who dreamed and hoped and flew far in her imagination.

  “What are you reading?” I nodded to the book poking out of his bag.

  “The Yosemite. It is by an American author named John Muir,” Toufiq said. “One of my engineering classmates in London brought it for me from California. I hope to visit there one day.”

  I took the book, letting my wrist touch his shirtsleeve, and opened it to an underlined passage.

  “ ‘The brow of El Capitan was decked with long snow-streamers like hair,’ ” I read. “ ‘Clouds’ Rest was fairly enveloped in drifting gossamer films, and the Half Dome loomed up in the garish light like a majestic, living creature . . .’ ”

  The words took me there. So often I shied away from English-medium books, though my father insisted I read them. English was like the broken shards of glass that lined the high walls in wealthy neighborhoods. Urdu was melodic. Like gossamer, as this John Muir said.

  “Clouds’ Rest,” I said. “What a beautiful name.”

  “Yes. Beautiful.” He glanced up at me and down again quickly, and my face warmed. I thought he would say more, but he only called for tea.

  “Do you—” His hands moved again. “Do you want children?”

  I was surprised. Even if women didn’t want children, I always thought most men did. Enough that they’d never care to ask the question. I nodded.

  “You?”

  He drummed his fingers on the table, and looked at the chaiwallah, still brewing our tea. He looked at the people at the other tables. He looked everywhere but at me.

  “I love my father, but I am not close to my mother. I worry—I wonder—will I be more like him? Or like her?” Toufiq laughed, rueful and charming. “I am sorry. It is a stupid thing to say.”

  The chaiwallah brought sabz chai, Kashmiri-style. It was pink and milky, sprinkled with cardamom and brimming with crushed pistachios and almonds. A romantic tea, I always thought. Perhaps because I mostly enjoyed it at weddings.

  I risked a quick glance over my shoulder at Faisal. He bragged to the chaiwallah about the Suzuki’s boot, preening as the chaiwallah nodded dutifully.

  “It’s not stupid,” I say. “Perhaps if it matters so much to you, it will be enough to make you a good parent.”

  Toufiq seemed embarrassed then, his hands as ceaseless as the tide. I reached forward to hold them, and for the first time since we took our seats, they were still.

  chapter 9

  Sal

  February, now

  When Abu and I arrive at the cemetery in the Civic, it takes me ten minutes to find parking because the lot is full. Sorry for being late to your funeral, Ama.

  Ha! I imagine her warm voice in my head. If you were on time, then I would know you were dhokay baz. An imposter.

  For two days, I’ve tried to conjure Ama’s voice. This morning, while putting on the shalwar-kameez she got me last Eid: Wear jeans instead of shalwar, Putar, she whispered. Unless you want your ankles showing.

  And again when I was tempted not to shave: Have you no tamiz? Don’t you dare show up unshaven to my funeral!

  Funeral. The word hurts. Makes me feel like I’m on a disappearing shoreline, watching a wave roll toward me. One that’s too high to avoid entirely, but so slow that for now, I can turn my back on it.

  I know I’m being an ostrich. I know I need to look this shit in the face. But I also need to get through the day without complete internal collapse. I can write about the word funeral and what it means later. Breathe. Five seconds in. Seven seconds out.

  Imam Shafiq meets me and Abu at the car, the freezing wind nearly blowing the topi from his head. He’s Pakistani, too, in his late twenties—but commanding in a nonobvious way. He came by the motel just after dawn to pray Janāzah—the funeral prayer—with Abu and me. Now he explains to Abu in quiet Urdu what will happen next.

  My father—sober, for now—looks to the gathering crowd. He closes his eyes for a long time. I hate that when he opens them, we’ll all still be here.

  At the same time, the sight of him makes me want to smash a car window. He’s the reason I wasn’t at the hospital when Ama died. Instead I was at home, dragging him into the house after he passed out in the car. Getting him into bed. Changing his clothes when he soiled them because he’d drunk himself insensate, and I knew Ama would smack me with a slipper if I left him in a puddle of his own urine.