to daughter after daughter, when Adam came home, eyes glazed, Fareeda could feel her firstborn daughters in the air, could almost hear their cries.
“Say something!” Deya said. “What do your daughters have to do with my parents?”
“Because I killed them. I didn’t know! I promise you, I didn’t know! I was so young—I had no idea—but it doesn’t matter. It was my fault. I killed them, and they’ve been haunting me ever since.”
Deya stared at her, her face twisted, unreadable. Fareeda knew her granddaughter could never understand how shame could grow and morph and swallow someone until she had no choice but to pass it along so that she wasn’t forced to bear it alone. She searched for the right words now, but there were none that could explain it. Deep down she knew what she had done—that she had pushed everyone away, that all she could do now was wait for the day when God would snatch her off this earth. She hoped it would be quick. What was the point of living, really, when you were like her—a fist of loneliness clenched around an empty heart?
Fareeda closed her eyes and breathed. Something inside her shifted, as if her whole life she had been looking in the wrong direction, not seeing the precise moment that turned everything upside down. She saw the chain of shame passed from one woman to the next so clearly now, saw her place in the cycle so vividly. She sighed. It was cruel, this life. But a woman could only do so much.
Deya
Winter 2008
The next morning Deya left her sisters at the corner of Seventy-Second Street and walked past them to the subway station, head bowed to avoid meeting their eyes. Her hands were sweating, and she wiped them on her jilbab. She pictured fleetingly how composed she had been the night before, when she’d told her sisters that they should run away, that she had a plan. She had smiled as she painted the future for them, a forced hope in her eyes.
But then they had done the unexpected. They had refused to leave. Nora said running away was a bad idea, that it wouldn’t bring back their parents, that it would only isolate them more. Layla had agreed, adding that they’d been sheltered their entire lives, and would never be able to survive on their own. They had no money. They had nowhere to go. Amal only nodded as the other two spoke, her eyes large and teary. They were sorry, they told her. But they were too afraid. Deya had said she was afraid, too. The difference was, she was also afraid of staying.
“I need to leave home,” Deya told Sarah when they’d settled in their usual spot. “Could I stay with you?”
“What about everything we’ve talked about? I don’t think running away is the answer.”
“But you ran away. And look at you now. Besides, I thought you said you wanted me to make my own choices. Well, this is my choice.”
Sarah sighed. “I lost my virginity and was afraid for my life. The circumstances were completely different. But you—you’ve done nothing wrong.” Deya could tell she was holding back tears. “If you go, you’ll lose your sisters. Maybe if I had stayed, Isra would still be here.”
“Don’t say that! Mama’s death had nothing to do with you. It was only his fault. His and Teta’s. Besides, what would’ve happened to you if you’d stayed? You would’ve been married off, probably have five or six kids by now. And that’s what’ll happen to me if I don’t leave. I have to go.”
“No! You have to try harder to fight for what you want.”
“Teta will never let me—”
“Listen to me.” Sarah cut her off. “You want to go to college, make your own choices, fine. Do that. You don’t want to get married? Then don’t. Put your foot down—refuse. Have the courage to speak up for yourself. Leaving your family is not the answer. Running away is cowardly, and you’d regret it for the rest of your life. What if you never see your sisters again? Never see their children? Is that what you want? Living your life as an outcast? You can do this the right way, Deya. You don’t have to lose your family.”
Sarah didn’t understand, thought Deya. She had forgotten what it was like. Deya couldn’t fight for anything in Fareeda’s house. She had a better chance of sawing off her own leg. “Then I’ll just get married,” she