Helping one girl face the future with hope

She reached up and hugged Theresa.

"I don't want.... "

Theresa cut her off. "Listen, you have to go. I want you to look back and remember your time here -- and remember me. But you have to go. You go -- and make something of yourself."

"But .... "

"Don't worry, no matter how far we are, we will always be friends."

Gently, Theresa placed into Marwa's small hand a letter.

"But I will miss you...."

"I will miss you too...."

A bittersweet journey

MY COLLEAGUES, photographer Anne Cusack and reporter Ashraf Khalil, accompanied Marwa on the plane. Marwa took out a photo of Theresa and kissed it, again and again. She read Theresa's letter. It said Theresa would never forget her.

Anne could see Marwa was sobbing.

At the baggage claim area in Amman, she spotted a man who looked like her. His back was turned, but she knew instantly that it was her father. She wrapped her arms around his legs, and he swept her up into his arms.

During two days in Amman, Marwa got a glimpse of her future. Mohammed Naim expected his daughter to address people formally, with honorifics: uncle, auntie or mister. But she called Ashraf by his first name. Her father upbraided her.

She pouted.

"She's getting stubborn," he said.

"No, I'm not," she said. "I'm not stubborn!"

"That's something that has to change," he said. Such disrespect could lead to danger at home. "We have to bring her back to our way."

He tried to prepare her for her neighborhood: His shop was faring poorly. Few people had enough money for Pepsis and chips. "Our neighbors? They were kidnapped, last month."

Everyone knew she had been in America, and people who had gotten help from Americans were not well thought of. "We come home every night and lock ourselves in."

She looked at him wearily. "Let's change the subject."

At 7 a.m. July 3, Marwa Naim and her father climbed aboard a propeller-driven, 13-seat Fokker to fly back to Baghdad. She wore designer jeans, high heels, a white blouse and a denim jacket, cut short above her waist.

She walked up a staircase to the door of the plane. She turned, gave a tiny wave and was gone.

A changed life

WHEN they reached Iraq, Marwa told me by phone, she learned that her father had remarried. His new wife was Faiza -- one of her distant cousins. Faiza, her father said, was pregnant.