Page 49 - A Woman Is No Man

There was something in his voice, and Isra found herself thinking of the
day on the balcony, the way his eyes had chased the grapevines, taking in
the open scenery. She wondered whether he longed to return to Palestine,

whether he wanted to move back home one day.
“Do you miss home?” The sound of her voice startled her, and she
dropped her eyes to the floor.
“Yes,” Adam said. “I do.”
Isra looked up to see that he was still staring at the curtains. “Would you
ever move back?” she asked.
“Maybe one day,” he said. “If things got better.” He turned away and

walked down the hall. Isra followed.
“My parents stay here on the first floor,” Adam said, pointing to the
bedroom. “Sarah and my brothers sleep upstairs.”
“Where will we stay?” she asked, hoping her bedroom had a window.
He pointed to a closed door down the hallway. “Downstairs.”
Adam opened the door and signaled her to go down. She did, all the

while wondering how they could live in a basement. If there was barely
enough light upstairs, what would the basement be like? She peered down
the shallow steps. At once, she was overwhelmed with darkness. She put
both hands in front of her and descended, the light cast from the doorway
fading with each step. She reached the bottom of the stairs and fumbled
against the wall in search of a light switch. Cold crept through her fingertips
until she found it and flicked it on.

A large, gold mirror hung on the wall directly in front of her. It seemed
odd that anyone should place a mirror in such a dreary, uninhabited place.
What good was a mirror in the middle of the dark with no light to reflect?
She entered the first room of the basement, surveying the dim space.
The room was narrow and empty—four gray walls, bare with the exception
of a window to her left and, in the center of the wall ahead, a closed door.

Isra opened it to find another room, slightly larger than the first and
furnished with a queen-size bed, a small dresser, and a large mirror. Beside
the mirror was a small closet, and beside that, a doorway that led to a
bathroom. This would be their bedroom, Isra knew. It didn’t have any
windows.
She studied her reflection in the mirror. Her face looked dull and gray in
the fluorescent light, and she stared at her small, weak frame. She saw a girl

who should’ve kicked and screamed as her mother tightened her wedding