Summary

The novel's first narrator is Isma Pasha. She is traveling from London to Northampton, Massachusetts where her mentor Dr. Hira Shah has helped her get into a PhD program in sociology. She is 28 years old and leaving behind her 19-year-old twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz, whom she helped raise as they were orphaned at a young age. At Heathrow airport, Isma is detained and questioned by security because she is a Muslim traveling to America. Her first morning in Massachusetts, Isma sees a parachutist through her skylight window. Later, she hears a sound she cannot identify and follows it outside. It is sleet hitting against icicles that have formed on Dr. Shah's house - ice on ice. This reminds her of Parvaiz. Isma goes to a coffee shop. When she opens her laptop, she sees that Parvaiz is signed in to Skype...