INTERLUDE

Not all stories have a happy ending.

Bassam El-Amin learned secondhand of the demise of the El-Amin family in Saudi Arabia. He never received official notice of how his brother, sister-in-law, nephews, and nieces had perished, but friends had passed along what information they knew. Bassam had pieced together the puzzle himself. He knew his brother, and he knew the kinds of trouble his mouth could get him into. A wrong word at the wrong time was all it took, and Ibrahim had a tendency to say many wrong words at many wrong times.

Bassam never went back to Saudi Arabia. It would not be safe for him to try. He had been living in America for fifteen years, had married an American woman, and raised children who considered themselves more American than Saudi. Even if he attempted to return, there would be no purpose. Wahhabi Muslims did not mark graves. Wherever his family was interred, Bassam would never visit the site to pay his respects.

And all of this following the disappearance of little Hana, who was meant to come live with his family and grow up in a free world alongside her cousins.

Bassam never found out what had happened to her either. The airline swore she had boarded the plane in Riyadh, but she had never made her connecting flight to Chicago and no one recalled seeing the little girl in the airport.

"You're worrying again."

Bassam looked up from the open newspaper on the table. His wife, Amanda, handed him a mug of hot tea with a dollop of honey, just the way he liked it on a cold morning. He had meant to read the article on funding changes to state universities in Illinois, but his eyes had never made it past the headline. Memories had claimed him again.

"There is no hope for my brother's family in Saudi Arabia, but I cannot help but worry about little Hana. She would be almost fifteen now. I wonder what sort of girl she would have become."

"These things are in God's hands. Heaven, Jannah, whatever language you name it in, children are never denied access to a better place."

"If I knew she had died I would not worry, Amanda. My fears are the awful things men do in this world, not what God will provide for her in the next."

Amanda placed her hand over Bassam's.

"If you can't find your faith today, then trust in mine. I know in my heart Hana is exactly where she is meant to be and that she is happier there than she ever was in this world."