Excerpt from In the Time of Our History by Susanne Pari, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Mitra scalded her tongue on the coffee, and her eyes watered. One of the airplanes trembled at the strain of its full-on engines, and she remembered tramping across the tarmac all those years ago in the shadow of her parents, little Anahita clasping her ears and squinting against the noise of the rush of air, while Mitra jumped and giggled in the thrilling vortex of mechanical energy.

Mitra belched softly, rubbed two fingers over the heartburn behind her sternum. Espresso and anxiety—well behaved on their own, rambunctious as urchins together. She dropped her coffee into a trash can. Transit was just another word for limbo, and there was no such place. Except maybe death.

She got up, kicked her carry-on to a wheel-perfect slant, and made her way toward the moving walkway. Nearing the edge of transit, she quickened her pace, focused on the resolute clip-clop of her heels on the terminal's stone floor and on a faraway Exit sign, not once eyeballing the small crowd of impatient, neck-craning welcomers straining at the stanchions and barrier ropes. And yet, she caught a whiff of Anahita's Chanel No. 9, a glimpse of little Nina's pink hair ribbons, a snatch of Nikku's pubescent belly laugh. Phantom memories. The car crash had taken all three of them—sister, niece, nephew.

At baggage claim, Mitra stepped outside and bummed a cigarette from an oily-haired businessman with a French accent. She hadn't smoked in fifteen years.

* * *

The rental car was appliance white. A Ford something. Itchy seats. Bad radio. Mitra's mother had offered to pick her up, but Mitra said it was too early in the morning. The truth was, Shireen was a terrible driver, the kind who kept the steering wheel in constant motion as if the mechanism needed second-by-second readjustment, who overcompensated on every turn and used the brake pedal like a pogo stick. It never occurred to her to wonder why her daughters got carsick only when she was at the wheel.

Mitra adjusted the seat to accommodate her lower back, which ached from transplanting a manzanita bush in her yard the day before. The September sun splashed onto the parking lot, making the concrete shimmer. She dug into her purse for her sunglasses. The air already felt humid, and she longed for the cool fog of San Francisco.

She merged into rush-hour traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway. She hoped it would take her a long time to get to New Jersey; it was hours before she was scheduled to pick her mother up for lunch. She could first drop her luggage off at her cousin Nezam's apartment in Manhattan, where she would be staying, but she felt too sluggish to deal with his five-year-old twin boys. Besides a short, openmouthed nap on the flight, Mitra hadn't slept. She was a bit numb, as if only half of her had landed in New York. She tuned in to the NPR station and was struck, as always, by the flood of news and commentary on the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair, its salacious details gravely analyzed by politicos and journalists while they ignored the massacres in Kosovo, the embassy bombings in Africa, and the Rwandan genocide trial.

In the Holland Tunnel, Mitra was ready when the memory of Anahita came to her. They were children in the back seat of her father's Cadillac, the tunnel like the inside of an animal's throat, yellow beams of light sweeping and flickering over their party dresses and lace-ruffled anklets, Anahita moving her rose-petal lips in silent child-prayer to keep the Hudson River from crushing them, and Mitra leaning over to whisper in her ear, Omigod! I just saw a leak!

The wicked memories; wicked because Mitra had been wicked in those early years. Until later when Anahita was Sweet Ana, red-licorice-smelling and cheeks like cool pillows and eyes that said tell me what to do—baby sister, unlucky sister; breakable to break Mitra's heart. Anahita, who wanted and needed everything Mitra did not.

Excerpted from In the Time of Our History by Susanne Pari. Copyright © 2023 by Susanne Pari. Excerpted by permission of Kensington Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.