Hajj

It was the happiest moment of all for Ahmad, Jenny, and Zainab. It was the most terrifying for Douglas. The two females and Douglas kept their faces well-hidden, circling the Kaaba seven times in this pilgrimage.

He thought, not for the first time, of Elizabeth. Of the choices he'd made, the choices that led him to being halfway around the world, away from his children with Elizabeth, next to a woman he'd lusted for and who had denied him utterly. And he'd go back to a homely, bony Pakistani woman that loved him no more than he had loved her. And he'd never even gotten to say goodbye to the lush, beautiful woman he'd loved with all his heart.