“I won’t get caught. Besides, don’t you want to know what she has to say? Teta has been lying to us all these years. If she lied about Sarah, what else is she lying about? We deserve the truth.”
Nora gave her a long, hard stare. “Just be careful,” she said. “You don’t know this woman. You can’t trust her.”
“Don’t worry. I know.”
“Oh, right,” Nora said with a crooked smile. “I forgot who I was talking to.”
Isra
Summer–Fall 1993
Summer again. Isra’s fourth in America. In August she’d given birth to her third daughter. When the doctor declared the baby a girl, a darkness had washed over her that even the morning light through the window could not relieve. She’d named her Layla. Night.
Adam made no effort to conceal his disappointment this time around. He’d barely spoken to her since. In the evenings, when he’d returned from work, she would sit and watch him eat the dinner she had prepared him, eager to meet his faraway gaze. But his eyes never met hers, and the clinking of his spoon against his plate was the only sound between them.
After Layla’s birth, Isra had not prayed two rak’ats thanking Allah for his blessings. In fact, she hardly completed her five daily prayers in time. She was tired. Every morning she woke up to the sound of three children wailing. After sending Adam off to work, she made the beds, swept the basement floor, folded a load of laundry. Then she entered the kitchen, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, to find Fareeda hovering over the stove, the teakettle whistling as she announced the day’s chores.
Sunset, and Isra had yet to pray maghrib. Downstairs, she opened her dresser and took out a prayer rug. Normally she laid the rug facing the kiblah, the eastern wall where the sun rose. But today she tossed the prayer rug on the mattress and threw herself on the bed. She took in the four bare walls, the thick wooden bedposts, the matching dresser. There was a black sock jamming the bottom drawer—Adam’s drawer. The one she only opened to put clean socks and underwear inside. But that was enough to know he kept a layer of personal things at the bottom. She rolled off the bed and leaped toward the dresser in a single step. She crouched down and froze, fingers inches from it. Did she dare open it? Would Adam want her rummaging through his things? But how would he find out? And besides, what good had obedience done her? She had been so good for so long, and where was she now? More miserable than ever. She reached for the drawer and pulled it open. One by one, she placed Adam’s socks and underwear on the floor beside her. Underneath was a folded blanket, which she removed as well, and beneath it lay several stacks of hundred-dollar bills, two packs of Marlboro cigarettes, a half-empty black-and-white composition notebook, three pens, and five pocket lighters. Isra sighed in disgust—what had she expected? Gold and rubies? Love letters to another woman? She placed everything back where it was, shoved the drawer shut, and returned to the bed.
Sprawled across her prayer rug, she couldn’t stop thinking. Why hadn’t Allah given her a son? Why was her naseeb so terrible? Surely she had done something wrong. That must be why Adam couldn’t love her. She could tell from the way he touched her at night, huffing and puffing, looking at anything but her. She knew she could never please him. His appetite was fierce, aggressive, and she could never seem to quench it. And worse, not only had she deprived him of a son, but she had given him three daughters instead. She didn’t deserve his love. She wasn’t worthy.
She reached under the mattress, grazed her fingers against A Thousand and One Nights. It had been years since she had looked at its beautiful pages. She pulled it out and opened it wide. It was full of pictures: glimmering lights, flying carpets, grand architecture, jewels, magic lamps. She felt sick. How foolish she had been to believe that such a life was real. How foolish she had been to think she would find love. She slammed the book shut and threw it across the room. Then she folded up her prayer rug and put it away. She knew she should pray, but she had nothing to say to God.