you remember? Sometimes I used to hear her on the front stoop, making funny noises as she read. You all used to laugh so hard. I rarely heard Isra laugh throughout the years, but in those moments she sounded like a child.”
Deya felt her mouth go dry. “What else?”
Khaled opened a jar of sumac. The burnt-red powder had always reminded Deya of her parents. Isra had liked to sauté onions in sumac and olive oil until they turned a light purple. Then she’d place the sautéed mixture on top of warm pita bread. Msakhan. It was her father’s favorite dish. She felt sick at the thought.
Khaled sprinkled a pinch of salt into the mixture. “What exactly do you want to know?”
What did she want to know? Even the question felt like a vast oversimplification of everything she was feeling. “I’ve been lied to all these years. I don’t know what to believe anymore, what to think, what to do.”
“I knew we should’ve told you the truth right away,” Khaled said, “but Fareeda was afraid . . . We were afraid . . . We didn’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. We only wanted to protect you.”
“There’s so much I don’t know.”
He met her eyes. “There’s so much none of us know. I still don’t understand why my daughter ran away, why my son killed his wife, killed himself. My own children, and I don’t understand them.”
“But at least Sarah is alive,” Deya said. “You can ask her why she ran away. You can get answers, you just choose not to.” Khaled looked away. From his expression Deya knew he was still angry with his daughter. “Will you ever forgive her?” He didn’t look up. “She misses you, and she’s sorry—she’s sorry she ran away.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not? Because she’s a girl? Is that it? Because she was only a girl and she dared to shame you? Would you have forgiven my father if he were still alive? Tell me, would you have forgiven him for killing my mother?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Deya shook her head. “What does that even mean?”
“It isn’t Sarah’s fault I can’t forgive her, it’s mine. My pride won’t let me forgive her. In this her crime is less than mine, much less. In this I have failed her. I have failed all of you.”
“You talk as though it’s too late, Seedo, but it’s not. You can still forgive her. There’s still time.”
“Time?” Khaled said. “No amount of time can bring back our family’s reputation.”
Isra
Spring 1997
Are you okay?” Isra asked Sarah that evening, after Fareeda and Nadine had settled in the sala to watch their favorite show. She and Sarah would sometimes join them, but tonight they stuffed cabbage leaves in the kitchen.
“I’m fine,” Sarah said.
Isra was careful with her words. “I know you’re worried about marriage, especially now that . . .” She brought her voice to a whisper. “After Hannah died.”
“She didn’t die,” Sarah corrected her, not bothering to lower her voice. “She was murdered by her husband. And yet my mother still insists on marrying me off like nothing happened.”
Isra didn’t know what to say. She didn’t see what Hannah’s death had to do with Sarah. If every woman refused to get married after a woman died at the hands of her husband, then no one would ever get married. Secretly Isra had begun to suspect that Hannah had done something to get herself killed. Not that she deserved to get killed, no. But there was no way a man would kill his wife for no reason, Isra told herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
Sarah shrugged. “There’s no point in talking.”
“Are you afraid? Is that it? Because I understand if you are, I—”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” Sarah pointed to the pot of stuffed cabbage leaves between them. “This isn’t life. I don’t want to live like this.”
Isra stared at her. “But there is no other life, Sarah. You know that.”
“For you, maybe. But there is for me.”
Isra could feel her face burn. She looked away.
“You know I snuck out of school the other day.”
“What?”
“It’s true. Me and my friends went out to celebrate the last week of school. We watched this movie in the theaters. Anna Karenina. You must have seen the commercials, no? It was the most romantic love story I’ve ever seen, and you know me—I don’t even like love stories. But you know