Page 51 - A Woman Is No Man

“I have no idea where they went,” Fareeda said. “Boys are a handful,
going and coming as they please. They’re not like girls. You can’t control
them.” She handed Isra a stack of plates. “I’m sure you know—you have

brothers.”
Isra smiled weakly. “I do.”
“Sarah!” Fareeda called out.
Sarah was upstairs in her bedroom. “Yes, Mama?” she called back.
“Come down here and help Isra set the sufra!” Fareeda said. She turned
to Isra. “I don’t want her thinking she’s excused from her chores now that
you’re here. That’s how trouble starts.”

“Does she have a lot of chores?” Isra asked.
“Of course,” Fareeda said, looking up to find Sarah at the doorway.
“She’s eleven years old, practically a woman. Why, when I was her age, my
mother didn’t even have to lift a finger. I was rolling pots of stuffed grape
leaves and kneading dough for the entire family.”
“That’s because you didn’t go to school, Mama,” Sarah said. “You had

time to do those things. I have homework to catch up on.”
“Your homework can wait,” Fareeda said, handing her the ibrik of chai.
“Pour some tea and hurry.”
Sarah poured tea into four glass cups. Isra noticed that she didn’t hurry
like Fareeda had asked.
“Is the chai ready?” A man’s voice.
Isra turned to find Khaled in the doorway. She took a good look at him.

His hair was thick and silver, his yellow skin wrinkled. He wouldn’t meet
her eyes, and she wondered if he was uncomfortable because she wasn’t
wearing her hijab. But she didn’t have to wear it in front of him. He was her
father-in-law, which, according to Islamic law, made him mahram, like her
own father.
“How do you like the neighborhood, Isra?” Khaled said, scanning the

sufra. Despite his faded features and the iron-colored hair across his jaw, it
was easy to see he had been handsome as a young man.
“It’s beautiful, ami,” Isra said, wondering if perhaps calling him father-
in-law would irritate him the way it had Fareeda.
Fareeda looked at her husband and grinned. “You’re ‘ami’ now, you old
man!”
“You’re no young damsel yourself,” he said with a smile. “Come on.”

He signaled them to sit down. “Let’s eat.”