her classmates ate lunch. As seniors, all twenty-seven girls sat together at a single table in the back of the cafeteria. Deya sat at the very end of the table, curled against the wall in her usual way, head down. Her classmates chatted loudly around her, each engrossed in her own joys and sorrows. She listened to their banter in silence.
“The wedding will be held in Yemen, where Sufyan lives,” Naeema continued. “My extended family lives there, too, so it makes sense.”
“So you’re moving to Yemen?” said Lubna. She was also getting married that summer, to her second cousin who lived in New Jersey.
“Yes,” Naeema said with pride. “Sufyan owns a house there.”
“But what about your family?” Lubna said. “You’ll be alone there.”
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Sufyan.”
For months now, Deya had listened quietly as Naeema explained the comings and goings of her relationship with Sufyan: how her parents had taken her back home to Yemen last summer to find her a suitor, that there she had met Sufyan, a rug maker, and fallen instantly in love. Their families had recited the fatiha prayer after the first visit, and by the end of the month, they had summoned a sheikh and signed the marriage contract. When one of her classmates had asked how she knew Sufyan was her naseeb, Naeema said that she had prayed Salat al-Istikhara, asking God for guidance, and that Sufyan had appeared to her that night in a dream, smiling, which her mother said was a sign to proceed with the marriage. They were in love, Naeema had said over and over, giddy with excitement.
“But you barely know him,” Deya said now, the words slipping from her.
Naeema looked at her, startled. “Of course I know him!” she said. “We’ve been talking on the phone for almost four months now. I swear, I use up at least a hundred dollars a week in phone cards.”
“That doesn’t mean you know him,” Deya said. “It’s hard enough knowing someone you see every day, let alone a man who lives in another country.” Her classmates stared, but Deya kept her eyes fixed on Naeema. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of making the wrong decision. How can you just move to another country with a stranger and think it will all be okay? How can you—” She stopped, feeling her heart begin to race.
“That’s how everyone gets married,” Naeema said. “And couples move to different places all the time. As long as they love each other, everything is fine.”
Deya shook her head. “You can’t love someone you don’t know.”
“How would you know? Have you ever been in love?”
“No.”
“So don’t talk about something you don’t know anything about.”
Deya said nothing. It was true. She had never been in love. In fact, besides the nurturing love she had for her sisters, she had never felt love. But she had learned about love through books, knew enough of it to recognize its absence in her life. Everywhere she looked, she was blinded by other forms of love, as if God were taunting her. From her bedroom window, she’d watch mothers pushing strollers, or children hanging from their father’s shoulders, or lovers holding hands. At doctors’ offices, she’d flip through magazines to find families smiling wildly, couples embracing, even women photographed alone, their bright faces shining with self-love. When she’d watch soap operas with her grandmother, love was the anchor, the glue that seemingly held the whole world together. And when she flipped through American channels when her grandparents weren’t looking, again love was the center of every show, while she, Deya, was left dangling on her own, longing for something other than her sisters to hold on to. As much as she loved them, it never felt like enough.
But what did love even mean? Love was Isra staring dully out the window, refusing to look at her; love was Adam barely home; love was Fareeda’s endless attempts to marry her off, to rid herself of a burden; love was a family who never visited, not even on holidays. And maybe that was her problem. Maybe that’s why she always felt disconnected from her classmates, why she couldn’t see the world the way they did, couldn’t believe in their version of love. It was because they had mothers and fathers who wanted them, because they were coddled in a blanket of familial love, because they had never celebrated a birthday alone. It was because they had cried in someone’s arms after a bad day, had