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powerful confidence, her hands flying about as if she were drying just-painted fingernails. Then she broke into a private smile, as if recounting something that had made her laugh.
What was it?
Zeitoun wondered. She was beautiful, fresh-faced, and the smile was everything—wide, shy, electric.
I want to make her smile like that
, he thought.
I want to be the one. I want to be the reason
. He liked her more with every step she took toward him. He was sold.
    But she was getting too close. She was heading straight for him. Did she know he had come to see her? How was this possible? Someone had told her. Ahmaad? Yuko? She was almost at his car. He would look foolish. Why was she coming right at him? He wasn’t ready to meet her.
    Not knowing what else to do, he ducked. Crouching below his dashboard, he held his breath and waited.
Please God
, he thought.
Please
. Would she pass by, or would she appear at his window, wondering about the man trying to disappear below her? He felt ridiculous.
    Kathy, though, had no idea she was passing a man hiding under his steering wheel. Her car just happened to be parked next to his. She unlocked her door, got in, and drove off.
    When she was gone, Zeitoun righted himself, breathed a sigh of relief, and tried to settle his stampeding heart.
    “I need to meet her,” he told Ahmaad.
    It was agreed that they would meet at Ahmaad and Yuko’s house. There would be a casual dinner, with Ahmaad and Yuko’s kids andKathy’s son Zachary. It would be low-pressure, just an opportunity for the two of them to talk a bit and for Kathy, who had yet to even see Zeitoun, to meet this man who had inquired about her.
    When she saw him, she liked his eyes, his handsome, gold-skinned face. But he seemed too conservative, and he was thirty-four to her twenty-one—well beyond the age she had imagined for a husband. Besides, it had been just two years since she’d left her first marriage, and she felt unready to begin again. She could think of nothing she needed from a man. She could certainly raise Zachary herself; the two of them had become a very good and streamlined team, and there seemed no reason to upset the balance of her life. She couldn’t risk the chaos that her first marriage had wrought.
    After he left that night, Kathy told Yuko that he was a nice enough man, but she didn’t think it was a good match.
    But over the next two years, she and Zeitoun saw each other occasionally. He would be at a barbecue at Ahmaad and Yuko’s, but out of deference to her—he didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable—when Kathy arrived, he would leave. He continued to ask about her, and once a year he sent an offhand inquiry through Yuko, just to be sure she hadn’t changed her mind.
    Meanwhile, Kathy’s outlook was evolving. As Zachary grew, she began to feel guilty. She would take him to the park and watch the other boys playing with their fathers, and she began to wonder if she was being selfish.
A boy needs a dad
, she thought. Was it unfair to dismiss the possibility of a father figure in Zachary’s life? Not that she was ready to act on these notions, but there was a slow thaw occurring within her. As the years went by, as Zachary turned three and then four, she grew more open to the idea of someone new.
    *    *    *
    Kathy called Zeitoun in the early afternoon.
    “Let’s wait and see,” he said.
    “That isn’t why I’m calling,” she said.
    A client on the West Bank wanted a bathroom repainted.
    “Really? We just finished that one,” he said.
    “She doesn’t like how it looks.”
    “I told her that color was wrong. Tangerine.”
    “Well, now she agrees with you.”
    “I’ll go now,” he said.
    “Don’t rush,” she said.
    “Well, make up your mind.”
    “I just don’t want you driving fast,” she said. Kathy worried about his driving, especially when there were people worried about a coming storm. She knew Zeitoun considered himself a good driver, but when they rode together