Page 255 - A Woman Is No Man

an extra twig of maramiya, hoping the smell would soothe her. But Fareeda
would never drink it. All she did was pound her palms against her face, like
Isra’s mama had often done after Yacob hit her. The sight made Isra sick

with guilt. She had known that Sarah was leaving and had done nothing to
stop her. She should’ve told Fareeda, should’ve told Khaled. Only she
hadn’t, and now Sarah was gone, and it felt as though she had slipped into a
pocket of sadness and would never emerge from it.

When she’d finished preparing dinner that night, Isra crept downstairs.
Deya, Nora, and Layla were watching cartoons; Amal slept in her crib. Isra
tiptoed across the basement quietly so as not to wake her. From the back of
their closet, she pulled out A Thousand and One Nights, her heart

quickening at the touch of the brown spine. Then she turned to the last
page, where she kept a stash of paper. She grabbed a blank sheet and began
to write another letter she would never send.
“Dear Mama,” Isra wrote,

I don’t understand what’s happening to me. I don’t know why I feel this way. Do you know,
Mama? What have I done to deserve this? I must have done something. Haven’t you always
said that God gives everyone what they deserve in life? That we must endure our naseeb
because it’s written in the stars just for us? But I don’t understand, Mama. Is this punishment
for the days I rebelled as a young girl? The days I read those books behind your back? The
days I questioned your judgment? Is that why God is taunting me now, giving me a life that is
the opposite of everything I wanted? A life without love, a life of loneliness. I’ve stopped
praying, Mama. I know it’s kofr, sacrilege, to say this, but I’m so angry. And the worst part is,
I don’t know who I am angry with—God, or Adam, or the woman I’ve become.
No. Not God. Not Adam. I am to blame. I am the one who can’t pull myself together, who
can’t smile at my children, who can’t be happy. It’s me. There’s something wrong with me,
Mama. Something dark lurking in me. I feel it from the moment I wake up until the moment I
sleep, something sluggish dragging me under, suffocating me. Why do I feel this way? Do you
think I am possessed? A jinn inside me. It must be.
Tell me, Mama. Did you know this would happen to me? Did you know? Is this why you
never looked at me as a child? Is this why I always felt like you were drifting far, far away? Is
this what I saw when you finally met my eyes? Anger? Resentment? Shame? Am I becoming
like you, Mama? I’m so scared, and nobody understands me. Do you even understand me? I
don’t think so.
Why am I even writing this now? Even if I mailed this off to you, what good would it do?
Would you help me, Mama? Tell me, what would you do? Only I know what you would do.
You’d tell me, Be patient, endure. You’d tell me that women everywhere are suffering, and that
no pain is worse than being divorced, a world of shame on my shoulders. You’d tell me to
make it work for my kids. My girls. To be patient so I don’t bring them shame. So I don’t ruin
their lives. But don’t you see, Mama? Don’t you see? I’m ruining their lives anyway. I’m
ruining them.