Page 272 - A Woman Is No Man

They reached the subway on Bay Ridge Avenue at 4:15 p.m. As they
descended the steps, Deya and Nora helping with the stroller, Isra exhaled a
deep breath. At the bottom, the station was dark and hot and claustrophobic.

She looked around, trying to figure out where to go next. There was a line
of metal poles blocking the entrance, and Isra didn’t know how to get
through them. She watched men and women slide through the pole,
dropping coins into metal slots, and she realized they would need tokens to
pass.
There was a glass booth to her right, with a woman standing inside it.
Isra pushed the stroller toward her. “Where can I get coins?” she asked,

feeling the English words heavy on her tongue.
“Here,” the woman said, not meeting Isra’s gaze. “How much do you
want?” Isra was confused. “How many tokens do you want?” the woman
said again, more slowly, shooting her an irritated look.
Isra pointed to the metal poles. “I need to go on the train.”
The woman explained the cost of each single ride. Overwhelmed by all

the information, Isra pulled out a ten-dollar bill and pushed it through the
glass.
“Th—thank you,” she stuttered when the woman handed her a fist of
tokens in return.
Isra’s hands were shaking. Inside the subway were two short staircases
leading farther down. Isra didn’t know which to take. She looked around,
but people rushed past her as though they were competing in a race. She

decided to take the staircase on the left.
“Are we lost, Mama?” Deya asked when they had reached the bottom of
the stairs.
“No, habibti. Not at all.”
Isra scanned the space around them. They stood in the middle of a dim
platform crowded with people. On both sides of the platform the concrete

floor dropped off like the edge of a cliff to the track. Isra traced the rail lines
with her eyes, curious to see where they led, but they disappeared into the
darkness beyond the platform’s end.
A black rectangular sign hung above the track, the letter R stamped in a
yellow circle on it. Isra didn’t know what the letter R stood for or where the
train would take her. But it didn’t matter. The best thing was to get on a
train, any train, and stay on it until the very last stop, until they were as far

from Bay Ridge as possible. There was no turning back now. If Adam knew