Page 126 - A Woman Is No Man

newborn whimpers, and Isra fed them breakfast. Deya was one year old,
Nora only two weeks, both bottle-feeding. A tide of guilt rose in Isra’s chest
whenever she mixed their formula, ashamed she wasn’t breastfeeding them.

But Adam needs a son, Fareeda insisted, and Isra obeyed, hoping a son
would make him happy.
But deep down was a hidden fear: Isra didn’t know if she could handle a
third child. With two children now, she was beginning to discover that she
was not particularly motherly. She had been too overwhelmed by the
newness to realize this when she was first mothering Deya, too optimistic
about what motherhood might hold. But as soon as Nora was born, Isra had

found her spirit changed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cradled
her children with joy, not merely out of a sense of obligation. Her emotions
seesawed constantly: anger, resentment, shame, despair. She tried to justify
her frustrations by telling herself that childbearing was wearisome. That had
she known how constricting a second child would feel, she wouldn’t have
rushed into another pregnancy (as if she’d had a choice, she thought in the

back of her head, then pushed the thought away). In the evenings as she
hummed Deya and Nora to sleep, a dark, desperate feeling overwhelmed
her. She wanted to scream.
What were her options now? What could she do to change her fate?
Nothing. All she could do was try to make the best of her situation. It
wasn’t like there was any turning back. She couldn’t return to Palestine,
couldn’t flip back a few chapters in the story of her life and change things.

And what a foolish thought that was—even if she could go back, she had
nothing to go back to. She was in America now. She was married. She was
a mother. She just had to do better. She’d done everything the way her
parents had wanted, so surely things would turn out for the best. After all,
they’d known what life would be like. She just needed to trust them. As the
Qur’an said, she needed to have more faith.

Maybe she would become a better mother with time. Maybe
motherhood was something that grew on you, an acquired taste. Still, Isra
wondered if her daughters could sense her failure, staring up at her with
their coffee-colored eyes. She wondered if she had betrayed them.