on both sides of the street. Plane trees stood in neat, straight lines along the paved sidewalk, their roots shooting through cracks in the cement. Flocks of pigeons glided across gray, overcast skies. And beyond the row of dull brick houses and worn cement blocks, beyond the line of London plane trees and dark gray pigeons—Fifth Avenue, with its tiny shops and zooming cars.
Fareeda was very much like Mama, Isra soon realized. She cooked and cleaned all day, dressed in loose cotton nightgowns. She sipped on chai and kahwa from sunrise until sunset. When Fareeda’s sons were around, she doted on them as though they were porcelain dolls instead of grown men. She prepared dinner just the way they liked, baked their favorite sweets, and sent them off to work and school with Tupperware boxes filled with spiced rice and roasted meats. Like Mama, Fareeda had only one daughter, Sarah, who was to Fareeda what Isra had been to her mother—a temporary possession, noticed only when there was cooking or cleaning to be done.
The only difference between Mama and Fareeda was their practice of the five daily prayers, which Isra had never seen Fareeda complete. Fareeda awoke each day at sunrise and headed straight to the kitchen to make chai, muttering a quick prayer as the teakettle whistled: “God, please keep shame and disgrace from my family.” Isra would stand quietly at the doorway, listening in awe as Fareeda mumbled at the stove. Once, she had asked Fareeda why she didn’t kneel before God to pray, but Fareeda only laughed and said, “What difference does it make how I recite my prayers? This is what’s wrong with all these religious folks these days. So hung up on the little things. You would think a prayer is a prayer, no?”
Isra would always agree with Fareeda so as not to upset her. She completed her five prayers downstairs in her bedroom, where Fareeda couldn’t see. Sometimes, after Isra was done with her afternoon chores, she snuck to the basement to combine the zuhr and asr prayers before returning back to the kitchen unnoticed. Fareeda had never forbidden her from praying, but Isra wanted to be safe, wanted to win her love. Mama had never given her much love, only a dash here and there when she’d seasoned the lentil soup properly or scrubbed the floors so hard the cement almost sparkled. But Fareeda was so much stronger than Mama. Perhaps alongside that strength, she had more room for love.
After they had swept the floors, wiped the mirrors, thawed the meat, and soaked the rice, they would sit at the kitchen table, cups of chai to their faces, and talk, or at least Fareeda would, the whole world seeming to swirl between her lips. Fareeda would tell Isra stories about life in America, the things she did to pass time when she wasn’t cooking and cleaning, like visiting her friend Umm Ahmed, who lived a few blocks away, or accompanying Khaled to the market on Sundays, or, when she was in a particular mood, attending the mosque on Fridays to catch up on the latest community gossip. Isra leaned forward, wide-eyed, inhaling Fareeda’s words. In the few weeks since her arrival to America, she had grown to like Fareeda, admire her even. Fareeda, with her loud, boisterous opinions. Fareeda, with her unusual strength.
Now Isra and Fareeda folded laundry, the last of the day’s work. The air between them was damp and smelled of bleach. Fareeda sat with her back against the washing machine, legs crossed under her, arranging black socks in matching pairs. Beside her, Isra sat in her usual way, legs folded tightly together, both arms in her lap as if to make herself smaller. She reached for a bright pair of men’s boxers from the pile of unfolded laundry. She didn’t recognize them. They must belong to one of Adam’s brothers, she thought. She could feel her face flush as her fingers touched the fabric, and she quickly turned from Fareeda. She didn’t want to seem immature, reddening at the sight of men’s underpants.
“It’s nice to finally have someone to help me,” Fareeda said, folding a pair of faded jeans.
Isra smiled wide. “I’m glad I can help.”
“That’s the life of a woman, you know. Running around taking orders.”
Isra pushed aside a pair of mint-green boxers and leaned closer to Fareeda. “Is that what you do all day?”
“Like clockwork,” Fareeda said, shaking her head. “Sometimes I wish I could’ve been born a