Page 262 - A Woman Is No Man

nothing but two hundred dollars in my pocket and a family relying on me to
feed them. We settled in Brooklyn because it was where the most
Palestinians lived, but still, the community here isn’t what it is there. It

never could be.”
“And you would never go back?”
“Oh, Isra,” he said, turning away to wash his hands. “Do you think we
can go back to how things were after all these years?”
Isra stared at him blankly. In all her years in America, she had never
stopped to consider whether she would return home if given the chance.
Would she be able to eat the small meals of her childhood, sleep on that old

lumpy mattress, boil a barrel of water every time she needed to bathe?
Surely those were only luxuries, creature comforts that paled in comparison
to community, to belonging.
When she didn’t respond, Khaled gathered his za’atar and turned to
leave. For a moment his gaze drifted toward the window. Outside the sky
had gone gray. Isra felt a shudder of sadness at the sight of his face. As he

walked away, she wished she knew how to answer his question, how to find
the right words. But saying the right thing was a skill it seemed she would
never learn.
“Maybe someday,” Khaled said, pausing in the doorway. “Maybe
someday we’ll have the courage to return.”