what I was thinking the whole time we were watching the movie?”
Isra shook her head.
“All I kept thinking was that I would never have a love like that. I will never fall in love, Isra. Not if I stay in this house.”
“Of course you will,” Isra lied. “Of course.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Isra knew her voice had betrayed her. “Don’t be foolish, Sarah. Books and movies, that’s not how the real world works.”
Sarah crossed her arms. “Then why do you spend all day reading?”
Isra felt a lump in her throat she could not swallow. Why was it so hard for her to admit the truth, not only to Sarah, but to herself? She knew she had to stop pretending things were okay. She was seized to confess, at last, the fear that circled her brain in endless loops: that she would do the same thing to her daughters that Mama had done to her. That she would force them to repeat her life.
“I’m sorry for what’s happening to you,” she said.
Sarah gave a harsh laugh. “No, you’re not. If you were really sorry, then you’d admit that this isn’t a life.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Then why do you think it’s okay, living the way you do? Is this the life you want for yourself? For your daughters?”
“I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Maybe I’ve been reading too much. But sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“In what way?” Sarah stared, concern etched on her face.
Isra had to look away, or she knew she wouldn’t be able to continue. “It’s hard to put in words without sounding crazy,” she said. “I lie in bed every morning, and I feel so desperate. I don’t want to wake up, I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to look at my daughters, and I don’t want them looking at me. Then I think, if I just push the sluggish thoughts away, if I just get up and make the bed and pour some cereal and brew an ibrik of chai, then everything will be okay. But it’s never okay, and sometimes I—” She stopped.
“Sometimes what?”
“Nothing,” Isra lied. She looked away, gathering her thoughts. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . I worry. That’s the heart of it. I worry that my daughters will hate me when they grow up, the way you hate Fareeda. I worry that I will end up doing the same thing to them that she’s done to you.”
“But you don’t have to do that to them,” Sarah said. “You can give them a better life.”
Isra shook her head. She wished she could tell Sarah the truth: that even though she willed herself not to, she secretly resented her daughters for being girls, couldn’t even look at them without stirring up shame. She wanted to say that it was a shame that had been passed down to her and cultivated in her since she was in the womb, that she couldn’t shake it off even if she tried. But all she said was, “It’s not that simple.”
“You’re starting to sound like my mother.” Sarah shook her head. “It seems pretty simple to me. All you have to do is let your daughters make their own choices. Tell me—shouldn’t a mother want her daughter to be happy? So why does mine only hurt me?”
Isra could feel the tears coming, but she held them back. “I don’t think Fareeda wants to hurt you. Of course she wants you to be happy. But she doesn’t know better. She’s never seen better.”
“That’s not an excuse. Why are you defending her?”
Isra didn’t know how to explain it. She had her own resentments toward Fareeda. The woman was tough. But Isra also knew the world had made her that way. That it was a hard world, and it was hardest on its women, and there was no escaping that.
“I’m not defending her,” she said. “I just want you to be safe, that’s all.”
“Safe from what?”
“I don’t know. . . . You’ve been scaring away your suitors. Now you’re sneaking out of school, going to the movies. I just worry your family will find out, and . . . I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Sarah laughed. “What do you suppose will happen to me if I accept one of the proposals my mother wants? Do you think I’ll ever be loved? Respected? Accomplished? Tell me,