Soon she would have three children when she still felt like a child herself. But what choice did she have? Fareeda had insisted she get pregnant before Nadine. “It’s your duty to bear the first grandson,” she’d said. Only now Nadine was pregnant, too, and might still bear a son before Isra.
“Please, Allah,” Isra whispered, a prayer she’d been muttering for weeks. “Please give me a son this time.”
Nadine squinted her bright blue eyes and laughed. “Don’t worry, Fareeda,” she said, tracing her fingers across her slim belly. “Inshallah you’ll have a little Khaled sooner or later.”
Fareeda beamed. “Oh, inshallah.”
Later that evening, Fareeda asked Isra to teach Sarah how to make kofta. A single ray of light fell through the kitchen window as they gathered the ingredients on the counter: minced lamb, tomatoes, garlic, parsley.
Sarah sighed. Her eyes were round and her lips sat in a quiet sneer, as though she had sensed something foul. She sighed again, reaching for the minced lamb. “How do you do this all day?”
Isra looked up. “Do what?”
“This.” She motioned to the kofta balls. “It would drive me crazy!”
“I’m used to it. And you might as well get used to it too. It will be your life soon enough.”
Sarah shot her a sidelong glance. “Maybe.”
Isra shrugged. Sarah had matured so much in the past two years. She was thirteen years old, creeping up on womanhood. Isra wished she could save her from it.
“Whatever happened to your romantic streak?” Sarah said.
“Not everyone ends up in the kitchen, you know. There is such a thing as a happy ending.”
“Now who sounds like a romantic?” Isra asked with a smile. She thought back to how naive she had been when she’d first arrived in America, walking around dreaming of love. But she wasn’t naive anymore. She had finally figured it out. Life was nothing more than a bad joke for women. One she didn’t find funny.
“You know what your problem is?” Sarah said.
“What’s that?”
“You stopped reading.”
“I don’t have time to read.”
“Well, you should make time. It would make you feel better.” When Isra said nothing, she added, “Don’t you miss it?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
Isra lowered her voice to a whisper. “Adam and Fareeda are already disappointed in me for having two girls. They wouldn’t like me reading, and I don’t want to make things worse.”
“Then read in secret like me. Isn’t that what you used to do back home?”
“Yes.” Isra entertained the idea for a moment and then pushed it away, amazed at how little defiance she had left. How could she tell Sarah that she was afraid of adding tension to her marital life? That she couldn’t handle any more blame for the family’s unhappiness? Sarah wouldn’t even understand if she did tell her. Sarah, with her bold, bright eyes and thick schoolbooks. Sarah, who still had hope. Isra couldn’t bear to tell her the truth.
“No, no.” Isra shook her head. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“Whatever you say.”
They stood by the oven, dropping balls of minced lamb into a sizzling pan of oil, one after another, waiting until each piece turned a crisp brown before setting it on old newspaper to cool. The heat stung their fingers, and Sarah laughed every time Isra dropped a ball of kofta on the floor.
“Better pick it up before Lord Fareeda sees you!” Sarah said, mimicking the look her mother always gave at the sight of sloppy cooking. “Or I might never see you again.”
“Shhh!”
“Oh, come on. She won’t hear us. She’s completely engrossed in her soap opera.”
Isra looked over her shoulder. It bothered her that she couldn’t even laugh without worrying about Fareeda. She knew she was only getting duller as the years passed, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to be happy. But she felt as though she wore a stain she couldn’t wash off.
Deya
Winter 2008
Nasser is waiting for you,” Fareeda told Deya when she returned home from school. “Go change out of your uniform! Quickly!”
It took a tremendous amount of effort for Deya not to confront Fareeda right then. All these years lying about Sarah! What else was she hiding? But Deya knew better than to challenge Fareeda. It would only jeopardize her future visits with Sarah and her chance to learn the truth, so she bit her tongue and said nothing, stomping down the stairs. When she came back up, Nasser and his mother were sipping chai and eating from a platter of