Page 252 - A Woman Is No Man

Fareeda

Summer 1997

It was Adam who first pointed his finger at Fareeda.

“It’s all your fault,” he said. Sarah had been gone for seven days, and
the entire family was gathered around the sufra.
Fareeda looked up from her dinner plate. She could feel everyone
staring. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re the reason she ran away.”
Fareeda raised both eyebrows, opened her mouth to protest—but Adam
waved a hand, dismissing her words before she’d had a chance to say them.

“This was all your doing!” He slurred his words. “I told you sending her
to a public school was a bad idea, that you should homeschool her, but you
didn’t listen. And for what? So she could learn English and help you with
doctor appointments?” He snorted and shook his head. “But that’s what you
get for being easy on her, on all of them. Everyone except me.”
It wasn’t as though Fareeda hadn’t considered this—that perhaps she

was to blame. But she kept her face calm and stony. “Is that what you’re
upset about? All the pressure we’ve put on you because you’re the eldest?”
She pushed herself up from the table. “In that case, why don’t you grab a
drink and sulk over it? You’re good at that.”
Adam rose from the table and stormed downstairs.

It wasn’t long before Omar and Ali pointed their fingers at Fareeda, too.
She made a spitting sound at them. Why, of course it was her fault! Blame it
on the woman! But she had only done what was best, raised her children the

best she knew how in this foreign place.
Khaled would’ve blamed her, too, only he was too busy blaming
himself. Nightly, he hid his pain behind a cloud of hookah smoke, but it was
clear the loss of his daughter had awakened a new feeling within him:
regret. Fareeda could see it in his eyes. She knew what he was thinking—he

had spent his entire life fighting to stay strong, trying not to collapse like his