Not Without My Daughter Book -

But on the tenth day, the cracks appeared. Moody returned from visiting a cousin with a dark look. He tore up their return tickets at the breakfast table. “We are not going back,” he said, not looking at her.

She woke Mahtob with a kiss. “Time for the adventure,” she whispered.

The flight to Tehran had been long. Mahtob had slept against her shoulder, and Betty had felt a flutter of adventure. They landed in a city that hummed with a foreign energy—the call to prayer, the scent of saffron and exhaust, the stern gaze of revolutionary guards. Moody’s family greeted them with effusive hugs and trays of sweets. His mother, a formidable woman with hennaed hair and eyes that missed nothing, kissed Betty on both cheeks. “You are home,” she said. not without my daughter book

That night, as Mahtob slept curled beside her, Betty pressed her face into the pillow and made a silent vow. It was not a vow of hope. It was a vow of iron. She would get her daughter out of this country, or she would die trying. There was no third option.

Betty laughed, a nervous, hollow sound. “Don’t be ridiculous, Moody. The flight is tomorrow.” But on the tenth day, the cracks appeared

The flight back to Michigan was long and silent. Mahtob slept. Betty stared out the window at the Atlantic Ocean, a vast blue expanse that felt like the first safe thing she had seen in two years. She thought of Moody, who would wake to an empty apartment, who would rage and threaten and swear vengeance. She knew he would fight for custody. She knew the nightmare was not entirely over. But for now, she was airborne. For now, she was free.

They drove through the sleeping city. Tehran at 4 a.m. was a ghost town. Revolutionary guard checkpoints were fewer, but each one made Betty’s heart stop. Reza talked his way past one by waving a pack of American cigarettes and muttering something about a sick mother. At the second, a young guard with a machine gun peered into the back seat. Mahtob, half-asleep, murmured in English, “Mommy, I’m scared.” “We are not going back,” he said, not looking at her

The first weeks were a blur of whispered arguments and slammed doors. Moody confiscated her passport. He took the cash she had hidden in her socks. He removed the phone from the wall. Betty was not a prisoner in a dungeon; she was a prisoner in a plush, carpeted apartment, surrounded by in-laws who smiled and offered her tea while speaking Farsi she could not fully understand. She caught fragments: “American… weak… she will give up.”