Page 131 - A Woman Is No Man

“Do you know how Isra and I became friends?” Deya shook her head.
“It was because of you.”
“Me?”

Sarah smiled. “It happened when she was pregnant with you. My
mother wanted a boy, of course. One day she said so to Isra, and we started
talking for the first time.”
“What did my mother say?”
“She disagreed, of course. She said she’d never belittle a daughter.”
“She said that?”
“Yes. She loved you and your sisters so much.”

Deya turned to look out the window. There were tears in her eyes, and
she tried to keep them from falling.
“You know she loved you,” Sarah said. “Don’t you?”
Deya kept her eyes on the glass. “She didn’t seem like she loved
anyone. She was so sad all the time.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t love you.”

Deya met her eyes again. “What about my father?”
A pause, then, “What about him?”
“What was he like?”
“He was . . .” Sarah cleared her throat. “He was a hard worker.”
“Most men I know are hard workers. Tell me something else.”
“I honestly didn’t see him much,” Sarah said. “He was always working.
He was the eldest son, and there was a lot of pressure on him.”

“Pressure from who?”
“My parents. They expected so much. Sometimes I think they pushed
him . . .” Sarah paused. “He was under a lot of pressure.”
Deya was certain she was hiding something. “What about his
relationship with my mother? Did he treat her well?”
Sarah shifted in her seat, tucking her long black curls behind her ears. “I

didn’t see them together very often.”
“But you said you were friends with my mom. Wouldn’t you know how
she felt? She didn’t talk about it?”
“Isra was a very private person. And she was raised in Palestine—she
was old-fashioned in certain ways. She never would have talked to me
about her relationship with him.”
“So you didn’t know that he hit her?”