Page 216 - A Woman Is No Man

Fareeda

Winter 2008

The sun faded beyond the bare trees, a sliver of it visible from the kitchen

window as Fareeda washed the last of the day’s dishes. One of the girls
should be washing these, she thought, carefully arranging the wet plates in
the dish rack. But they had hurried to the basement after dinner, feigning
sickness, leaving Fareeda no choice but to do the dishes herself. “I’m the
one who’s sick,” she mumbled to herself. An old woman washing dishes—
it was disgraceful! With four teenage girls in the house, she should have
been giving orders like a queen. But she still had to cook and clean, still had

to pick up after them. She shook her head. Fareeda couldn’t understand how
her granddaughters had turned out so unlike her, so unlike their mother.
Surely it was America. One quick wipe of the kitchen table, and these girls
thought they were done. As if things could be washed so easily. They didn’t
understand you needed to scrub hard, crouched on hands and knees, until
the house was spotless. These spoiled American children knew nothing

about real work.
When she was done, Fareeda retired to her bedroom. Brushing her hair,
she wondered when she had last fallen asleep beside Khaled. It had been so
many years she couldn’t remember. She didn’t even know where he was
tonight—likely at the hookah bar, playing cards. Not that it mattered. He
rarely looked at her most nights, staring absently ahead as he ate his dinner
in silence, not even thanking her for the food she had labored over all day.

The younger Khaled would’ve had some remark to fault her cooking,
saying the rice was overcooked, or the vegetables oversalted, or that there
was not enough green pepper in the ful. But now he hardly spoke at all. She
wanted to shake him. What had happened to the man who used to break
belts across her skin? Who never went a day without insulting her? But that

man had faded over the years. When had it begun? When had he first
started to lose the spark in his eyes, the iron grip he had around his life? She
thought it was the day they came to America. She hadn’t noticed it then, the