A Woman Is No Man(86)
“She didn’t die,” Sarah corrected her, not bothering to lower her voice. “She was murdered by her husband. And yet my mother still insists on marrying me off like nothing happened.”
Isra didn’t know what to say. She didn’t see what Hannah’s death had to do with Sarah. If every woman refused to get married after a woman died at the hands of her husband, then no one would ever get married. Secretly Isra had begun to suspect that Hannah had done something to get herself killed. Not that she deserved to get killed, no. But there was no way a man would kill his wife for no reason, Isra told herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
Sarah shrugged. “There’s no point in talking.”
“Are you afraid? Is that it? Because I understand if you are, I—”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” Sarah pointed to the pot of stuffed cabbage leaves between them. “This isn’t life. I don’t want to live like this.”
Isra stared at her. “But there is no other life, Sarah. You know that.”
“For you, maybe. But there is for me.”
Isra could feel her face burn. She looked away.
“You know I snuck out of school the other day.”
“What?”
“It’s true. Me and my friends went out to celebrate the last week of school. We watched this movie in the theaters. Anna Karenina. You must have seen the commercials, no? It was the most romantic love story I’ve ever seen, and you know me—I don’t even like love stories. But you know what I was thinking the whole time we were watching the movie?”
Isra shook her head.
“All I kept thinking was that I would never have a love like that. I will never fall in love, Isra. Not if I stay in this house.”
“Of course you will,” Isra lied. “Of course.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Isra knew her voice had betrayed her. “Don’t be foolish, Sarah. Books and movies, that’s not how the real world works.”
Sarah crossed her arms. “Then why do you spend all day reading?”
Isra felt a lump in her throat she could not swallow. Why was it so hard for her to admit the truth, not only to Sarah, but to herself? She knew she had to stop pretending things were okay. She was seized to confess, at last, the fear that circled her brain in endless loops: that she would do the same thing to her daughters that Mama had done to her. That she would force them to repeat her life.
“I’m sorry for what’s happening to you,” she said.
Sarah gave a harsh laugh. “No, you’re not. If you were really sorry, then you’d admit that this isn’t a life.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Then why do you think it’s okay, living the way you do? Is this the life you want for yourself? For your daughters?”
“Of course not, but I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“So many things.” Isra’s eyes watered. “Adam, Fareeda . . . myself.”
“Yourself? Why?”
“I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Maybe I’ve been reading too much. But sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“In what way?” Sarah stared, concern etched on her face.
Isra had to look away, or she knew she wouldn’t be able to continue. “It’s hard to put in words without sounding crazy,” she said. “I lie in bed every morning, and I feel so desperate. I don’t want to wake up, I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to look at my daughters, and I don’t want them looking at me. Then I think, if I just push the sluggish thoughts away, if I just get up and make the bed and pour some cereal and brew an ibrik of chai, then everything will be okay. But it’s never okay, and sometimes I—” She stopped.
“Sometimes what?”
“Nothing,” Isra lied. She looked away, gathering her thoughts. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . I worry. That’s the heart of it. I worry that my daughters will hate me when they grow up, the way you hate Fareeda. I worry that I will end up doing the same thing to them that she’s done to you.”
“But you don’t have to do that to them,” Sarah said. “You can give them a better life.”
Isra shook her head. She wished she could tell Sarah the truth: that even though she willed herself not to, she secretly resented her daughters for being girls, couldn’t even look at them without stirring up shame. She wanted to say that it was a shame that had been passed down to her and cultivated in her since she was in the womb, that she couldn’t shake it off even if she tried. But all she said was, “It’s not that simple.”
“You’re starting to sound like my mother.” Sarah shook her head. “It seems pretty simple to me. All you have to do is let your daughters make their own choices. Tell me—shouldn’t a mother want her daughter to be happy? So why does mine only hurt me?”
Isra could feel the tears coming, but she held them back. “I don’t think Fareeda wants to hurt you. Of course she wants you to be happy. But she doesn’t know better. She’s never seen better.”