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in the same place as we are when I hear him say, “Mariam? I thought that was you.”
    â€œBih.” A nonsensical word, delivered with a friendly smile.
    He shifts from one foot to the other. There is nothing I can do. I make the introductions.
    â€œAh, your cousin?” he says. “You look nothing like each other.”
    â€œCousins, not twins,” Dalal says with a light and airy laugh. He smiles, obviously charmed, and waits. She grins, showing too many teeth, and waits.
    I am expected to invite him to join us. If he sits, we’ll be forced to stay longer. If that happens, he might fall head over heels for Dalal—before I get a chance to win him over. I cannot believe the tumble of such thoughts in my mind. “It’s late!” I say, covering Dalal’s objection with the noise of my chair grating as I push it back. “We have to leave now.” I pull her away from him before she can say anything else, but Adel calls out to me: a reminder of tomorrow’s study session.
    â€œYes,” I call back. “Tomorrow.”

4
MAJED
    â€œYou’d think there would be a little coolness with all these clouds,” my youngest son, Badr, says as we exit the mosque after the Friday prayer. Heat-dazed into listlessness, Badr squints at the sky: a glaring white sheet holding a furious ball of sun. “It’s still January, and suddenly it gets so hot? I told you we should have taken the car, Baba,” he says, fanning his face with both hands, his arms slack as if there were no bones in them.
    A haze hovers over the tarmac at the end of the small road; the palm trees stand stiff, their fronds dull with desert dust. No birds and no wind. Dots of perspiration collect on my forehead, and I scowl at the humidity. The weather changed so abruptly the people in the mosque couldn’t stop talking about it. “When I was young I walked everywhere, summer and winter, and never complained.” I pause to bid peace to some men leaving the mosque, and then continue. “The sand burned the soles of my feet, the sun singed my face. You listening?”
    Badr nods with a smile and crouches to uncover our sandals, strewn among the pile of all the sandals belonging to the worshippers.
    â€œWith every breath, the heat collected and got trapped up my nose, turned to steam.”
    â€œI’m just saying, Baba, an air-conditioned car would have been more comfortable.” Badr has a lisp. The tip of his tongue pops out with every word. Right now, it’s an added irritation to the fact that he’s right. It will take us no longer than fifteen minutes to walk to our house, which is three streets away. And yet by the time we get there, we’ll be wet through. And then the blast of air-conditioning will make us shiver and get sick. “The body has gotten so weak with all this modernity,” I say, envying the men getting in their cars and driving away. “And you, you children are the air-conditioned generation; you can’t even handle a little walk under the sun.”
    Badr chuckles. “I’m hardly a child, Baba,” he says. “God willing, I’ll be finishing school this year.” He has located my sandals and kneels to position them in front of me. Despite the glare, he looks straight up at me; his lids are slightly hooded and his lashes are so thick it looks like he’s wearing kohl. Yes, we have the same eyes; the difference is that there is no restless hunger in his.
    â€œYou said that last year,” I grunt and start walking. We are the only people on the road. Under my kandora, I am swathed in soggy, hot air. No matter how many times I pull it loose, my wizar creeps back into the cracks, kneading its way into my bottom and clinging to the back of my knees. Ahead is a municipal garbage bin, silver and gleaming under the sun. We cross the road to avoid the stink.
    â€œNo, really, this time it’s true,” says Badr, and he