things sound great in some inspirational speech, or in a book, but the real world is much more complicated.”
“Tell me,” Sarah said, sitting up in her chair. “Why can’t you stand up to my parents?”
Deya fixed her eyes on the window.
“You can tell me,” Sarah said. “Be honest with me, with yourself. What are you so afraid of?”
“Everything!” Deya heard the sound of her voice before she knew she was speaking. “I’m afraid of everything! I’m afraid of letting down my family and culture, only to find out that they were right in the end. I’m afraid of what people will think of me if I don’t do what I’m supposed to do. But I’m also afraid of listening to them and coming to regret it. I’m afraid of getting married, but I’m even more afraid of being alone. There’s a thousand voices in my head, and I don’t know which one to listen to! The rest of my life is staring me in the face, and I don’t know what to do!” She willed herself to stop talking, but the words spilled out. “Sometimes I think I’m so scared because of my parents, but then I wonder if it’s my memories of them that make me sad, or if I’ve been sad all along, before my brain could even make memories. And then there are days when I’m certain I’ve remembered everything wrong, and there’s this horrible feeling inside me, and I think maybe if I remember something good, I’ll be cured. But it never works.”
Sarah reached out and squeezed Deya’s knee. “Why do your memories of your parents make you so sad? What could you possibly remember to make you feel like that?”
“I don’t know. . . . I don’t even know if my memories are real. All I know is that my mother was sad all the time. She hated marriage, and she hated being a mother.”
“But you’re wrong,” Sarah said. “Isra didn’t hate being a mother.”
“That’s how it seemed to me.”
“Just because she was sad, that doesn’t mean she hated being a mother.”
“Then why—”
But Sarah cut her off. “You have to understand, Isra was only seventeen when she married Adam, and she had no one here besides him. She was exhausted—cooking, cleaning, raising children, trying to please Adam and my mom. She struggled more than any woman I’ve ever met, but she loved you dearly. It hurts me that you don’t remember that.”
“I’m sure she struggled,” Deya said, “but it was her choice to have all those children. She never stood up for herself, much less for us.”
A small smile returned to Sarah’s face. “Interesting you should say that. For a minute there, I thought you didn’t believe women like us had a choice at all.”
“Well, yes, but—”
Sarah shook her head. “You can’t take it back now. You’ve just admitted you have choices. You’ve done worse than that, really.”
Deya frowned.
“If you believe Isra—a Palestinian immigrant, with no job or education and four children to look after, and who didn’t even speak English well—if you believe she had a choice, then that speaks volumes about the amount of choice a bright, educated Arab American girl like yourself has.” Sarah shot Deya a playful smile. “Don’t you think?”
Deya started to protest but found nothing to say. Sarah was right. She did have choices. What she didn’t have was enough courage to make them.
“I should get going,” Deya said, looking at the clock on the wall. “I don’t want to be late to meet my sisters.” She stood and gathered her backpack. “Time seems to fly in here,” she said as Sarah walked her out.
“Does that mean you like my company?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Well, come back soon then. I want to tell you a story.”
“A story?”
Sarah nodded. “About why Isra started reading.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
Isra
Winter 1993
The leaves turned brown. The trees were bare. Snow came. Isra watched it all from the basement window. People on the sidewalks rushed by, cars blinked and honked, traffic lights flashed in the distance. But all she saw was a dull painting, flat behind the glass. She had days of overwhelming sadness, followed by days of helplessness. It had been like this ever since the birth of Nadine and Omar’s son. Whenever Adam came home to find her staring dully out the basement window, she did not protest when he neared her. In some perverse way she even looked forward to it. It felt like her way of apologizing for all she had done.