Page 246 - A Woman Is No Man

them looking at me. Then I think, if I just push the sluggish thoughts away,
if I just get up and make the bed and pour some cereal and brew an ibrik of
chai, then everything will be okay. But it’s never okay, and sometimes I—”

She stopped.
“Sometimes what?”
“Nothing,” Isra lied. She looked away, gathering her thoughts. “It’s just
that . . . I don’t know . . . I worry. That’s the heart of it. I worry that my
daughters will hate me when they grow up, the way you hate Fareeda. I
worry that I will end up doing the same thing to them that she’s done to
you.”

“But you don’t have to do that to them,” Sarah said. “You can give them
a better life.”
Isra shook her head. She wished she could tell Sarah the truth: that even
though she willed herself not to, she secretly resented her daughters for
being girls, couldn’t even look at them without stirring up shame. She
wanted to say that it was a shame that had been passed down to her and

cultivated in her since she was in the womb, that she couldn’t shake it off
even if she tried. But all she said was, “It’s not that simple.”
“You’re starting to sound like my mother.” Sarah shook her head. “It
seems pretty simple to me. All you have to do is let your daughters make
their own choices. Tell me—shouldn’t a mother want her daughter to be
happy? So why does mine only hurt me?”
Isra could feel the tears coming, but she held them back. “I don’t think

Fareeda wants to hurt you. Of course she wants you to be happy. But she
doesn’t know better. She’s never seen better.”
“That’s not an excuse. Why are you defending her?”
Isra didn’t know how to explain it. She had her own resentments toward
Fareeda. The woman was tough. But Isra also knew the world had made her
that way. That it was a hard world, and it was hardest on its women, and

there was no escaping that.
“I’m not defending her,” she said. “I just want you to be safe, that’s all.”
“Safe from what?”
“I don’t know. . . . You’ve been scaring away your suitors. Now you’re
sneaking out of school, going to the movies. I just worry your family will
find out, and . . . I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Sarah laughed. “What do you suppose will happen to me if I accept one

of the proposals my mother wants? Do you think I’ll ever be loved?