A Woman Is No Man(76)
She slipped out of her evening gown and into something warmer. The heating unit in her bedroom didn’t work as well as it once had. Either that, or her bones were getting frail, but she didn’t like to think that way. She sighed. She couldn’t believe how quickly time had passed, that she had gotten old. Old—she shook the thought away. It was not the thought of being old that bothered her rather the realization of what her life had amounted to. What a shame, she thought now as she waited for sleep to come, shuffling through her bank of memories. She didn’t have even a single good memory to look back on. They had all been tainted.
There was a sound at the door. Startled, Fareeda pulled the blanket over her body. But it was only Deya, breathing heavily in the doorway. Fareeda could sense unease in her presence, perhaps even defiance. It reminded her of Sarah, and suddenly she was afraid. “What do you want?” Fareeda said. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
Deya took several steps into the room. “I know my parents didn’t die in a car accident!” She was shouting even though she only stood a few feet away. “Why did you lie?”
For goodness sake, Fareeda thought, holding her breath. Not this again. How many times had she been over this? Your parents died in a car accident, your parents died in a car accident. She had said those words so many times that sometimes even she believed them. She wished she could believe them entirely. Unlike Sarah’s disappearance, Isra’s murder was not something she had been able to hide from the community. By morning, the news had traveled all over Bay Ridge, had even made it to Palestine. Khaled and Fareeda’s son had murdered his wife. Khaled and Fareeda’s son had committed suicide. Their shame was terrible.
The one thing she had done right was to manage to keep it from the girls. She couldn’t tell them the truth—why, of course she couldn’t! How could she explain what had happened—that their father had killed their mother, that their father had killed himself—without ruining them, too? Sometimes it was best to keep quiet. Sometimes the truth hurt the most. She couldn’t have them walking around like they were damaged goods. Sheltering them was the only way they had a chance at normal lives. She had hoped people would forget in time, wouldn’t ostracize them, would even ask for their hands in marriage one day. She had wanted to save their reputations, save them the shame.
“Not this again,” Fareeda said, keeping her face steady. “Is that why you woke me up? To talk about this?”
“I know my father killed my mother! I know he killed himself, too!”
Fareeda swallowed hard. She felt as though a rock was stuck in her throat. Where was all this coming from? Had she heard something at school? It was possible, though unlikely. For years Fareeda had asked her friends never to mention the subject in front of her granddaughters, asking them to tell their children to do the same. And in a community as tightly knit as theirs, it had worked. Over a decade, and not one slipup. Sometimes she wondered if the girls at her granddaughters’ school even knew what had happened. Perhaps their parents hadn’t told them, afraid it would give them the wrong idea about marriage. Sometimes Fareeda wondered the same thing herself. She knew she shouldn’t have told Sarah what had happened to Hannah. Perhaps that’s why she’d run away, Fareeda often told herself. But she brushed these thoughts aside. She couldn’t be sure what Deya knew, so she decided to feign ignorance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Your parents died in a car accident.”
“Did you hear me? I know what he did!”
Fareeda remained silent. What would she look like, admitting the truth after all these years? A complete fool. She couldn’t do it. Why dwell on the past? People should always move on, no matter what. They should never look back.
“Fine.” Deya reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled newspaper clipping. She held it up so Fareeda could see it. “It doesn’t matter if you say nothing. Sarah already told me everything.”
Fareeda began to shiver as though all the heating units in the house had let out at once. She pulled her nightgown over her knees, tugging on the fabric forcefully, as if by doing so she could will the words away. She stared at the window for a moment, then leaped out of bed and wrapped herself in a thick robe. She turned on her bedroom lamps, the sconces in the hall, all the lights in the kitchen. There she retrieved a tea packet from the pantry, set a kettle on the stove. She felt strange, as though she was there and not there at the same time. What was happening? It took her a moment to find her mental footing. Finally she said, “Sarah?”
Deya stood in the kitchen doorway, still holding up the newspaper clipping. “I saw her. She told me everything.”
“It must be a mistake,” Fareeda said, refusing to look at the clipping. “Sarah is in Palestine. Someone must be playing a trick on you.”
“Why do you keep lying? The truth is right here!” Deya waved the clipping in front of her. “You can’t hide it anymore.”
Fareeda knew Deya was right. Nothing she said could cover up the truth this time. Yet still, she found herself searching for a way to dispel it. She reached out and took the newspaper clipping, her fingers trembling as she scanned it. It seemed like only yesterday that Sarah had run away, leaving Fareeda in a panic. If anyone found out that Sarah had left, disappeared into the streets of America, their family’s honor would have been ruined. And so Fareeda had done what she’d always done: she’d fixed it. It hadn’t taken her long to convince her friends that Sarah had married a man in Palestine. She’d been so pleased with herself. But murder, suicide—these public shames had been impossible to hide. And for that, her granddaughters would forever pay a price.