Page 82 - A Woman Is No Man

Fareeda cut the dough into individual knots and arranged each one on
the pan. Then she drizzled them with olive oil and popped them in the oven.
Isra watched quietly as the bread baked, not knowing what to say or do.

Fareeda was humming to herself, plucking the steaming loaves from the
oven before they burned. Isra wished she could store her cheeriness in a
bottle. The last time Fareeda had smiled widely enough for Isra to see her
gold tooth had been when Adam had given her a bundle of bills, five
thousand dollars. It was extra money the deli had made that month, and he
had told Fareeda he wanted her to have it. Isra could still remember the
bulge in Fareeda’s eyes at the sight of the money, the way she gripped it

close to her chest before disappearing into her bedroom. But now Isra could
see, from the approving glimmer in Fareeda’s eyes, that her pregnancy was
far more important than money. She stared inside the oven, feeling her
stomach rise and fall with the swelling and collapsing of every knot of pita.
Was this happiness she felt? She thought it must be.

Adam came home early that day. From the kitchen Isra heard him take off
his shoes and enter the sala, where Fareeda was watching her evening

show. “Salaam, Mother,” he said. Isra listened as Fareeda kissed him on
both cheeks and congratulated him.
Was he happy? Isra couldn’t tell. She had spent the afternoon worrying
about how he would react to the news, wondering whether he wanted a
child now, or if he would’ve preferred to wait a couple of years until they
could better afford it. More than once, Fareeda had mentioned that Adam
was helping them pay for Ali’s college tuition, so how would they have

enough money to cover the expense of a newborn? When she’d asked,
Fareeda had merely smiled and said, “Don’t worry about that. With food
stamps and Medicaid, you can have as many children as you want.”
Adam hummed a melody from an Abdel Halim song as he walked to the
kitchen, grinning when he met Isra’s eyes. “I can’t believe I’m going to be a
father,” he said.

Isra exhaled in relief. “Mabrouk,” she whispered. “Congratulations.”
He pulled her to him, wrapping one arm around her waist and placing
his hand on her belly. She tried to keep from flinching. She still wasn’t used
to his touch. Sometimes she thought it was strange to be a girl like her, to
go from a man never touching her to the full force of a husband inside her.
It was a sudden transition, and she wondered when she would become