Page 231 - A Woman Is No Man

shortages of food and medicine. One day I ran out of formula, so I stole a
cup of goat’s milk from our neighbor’s tent and fed them and . . .”
“I don’t see how this has anything to do with my parents being

possessed,” Deya said.
How could she make her see? Fareeda sucked back tears. It had
everything to do with Adam and Isra. Her daughters had been punishing her
all these years for what she had done. When Isra gave birth to daughter after
daughter, when Adam came home, eyes glazed, Fareeda could feel her
firstborn daughters in the air, could almost hear their cries.
“Say something!” Deya said. “What do your daughters have to do with

my parents?”
“Because I killed them. I didn’t know! I promise you, I didn’t know! I
was so young—I had no idea—but it doesn’t matter. It was my fault. I killed
them, and they’ve been haunting me ever since.”
Deya stared at her, her face twisted, unreadable. Fareeda knew her
granddaughter could never understand how shame could grow and morph

and swallow someone until she had no choice but to pass it along so that
she wasn’t forced to bear it alone. She searched for the right words now, but
there were none that could explain it. Deep down she knew what she had
done—that she had pushed everyone away, that all she could do now was
wait for the day when God would snatch her off this earth. She hoped it
would be quick. What was the point of living, really, when you were like
her—a fist of loneliness clenched around an empty heart?

Fareeda closed her eyes and breathed. Something inside her shifted, as
if her whole life she had been looking in the wrong direction, not seeing the
precise moment that turned everything upside down. She saw the chain of
shame passed from one woman to the next so clearly now, saw her place in
the cycle so vividly. She sighed. It was cruel, this life. But a woman could
only do so much.