1
Yara was straining basmati rice in the kitchen sink when the doorbell rang. In a rush, she transferred the rice to a pot, adding garlic, allspice, turmeric, and a stick of cinnamon, wishing she’d had a red chili pepper on hand. Stealing a quick glance at the oven timer, she frowned. She tightened her fingers around the pot handle and listened to her husband’s voice in the hall.
“Ahlan wa sahlan,” Fadi said. “Come on in.”
As she added warm water to the pot, Yara could hear Fadi kissing his parents on both cheeks, then the shuffle of shoes being taken off by the front door, then her two daughters’ footsteps like drumbeats down the stairs. “Sitti! Seedo!” they called out.
On any other night, she would have peeked out of the kitchen to watch Mira and Jude descending the circular staircase to greet their father at the door, on his return home from work. Fadi would set down a box in the foyer, wiping his palms against his pants before his daughters clamped their arms around his legs. But on Sundays, Fadi took off work, and more often than not his parents came over for dinner. Yara always spent the day pacing around the house in preparation for their arrival, scrubbing the bathrooms and picking specks of dirt off the hardwood floors, before centering herself between the walls of her spice pantry, surrounded by olive oil, za’atar, nutmeg, and coriander, the aroma bringing her back to her grandmother’s kitchen in Palestine.
She set the pot of rice on the stove and lit the burner. Looking up, she found Fadi filling the doorway with his tall, broad frame. “You’ve outdone yourself,” he said. “Everything smells delicious.”
Yara wiped her forehead with the bottom of her apron. In the foyer she could hear her daughters ushering their grandfather upstairs to play with them. “Thanks,” she said, without meeting Fadi’s eyes.
As soon as she grabbed a tall bottle of olive oil from the pantry, Yara felt another presence in the kitchen. When she looked up, her mother-in-law was standing next to Fadi.
“Marhaba,” Nadia greeted her.
“Ahlan khalto,” Yara said, forcing her mouth into a smile. She gripped the edge of her apron, breathing slowly.
“Try not to sound too excited now,” Nadia said in Arabic as she peeled off her hijab, folded it neatly, and set it on the counter. Her short hair was henna-dyed a rich wine-red color, but tints of gray showed at her temples.
Fadi coughed, his face reddening. “I’m going to check on the girls.”
Yara could feel her heart begin to race as he slipped out of the room. She unscrewed the olive oil, poured a splash into the rice.
“Shu? You’re still cooking?” Nadia said, walking toward the stove. She was a plump woman with round cheeks and small, expectant eyes.
“I’m almost done,” Yara said, her hands shaking. She put a glass lid on the rice, adjusting it so no steam would escape.
“Let’s see what we have here,” Nadia said. She walked over to the dining table, eyeing the Palestinian staples Yara had spread out on the sufra: olives and olive oil, hummus, pita, sliced tomatoes, pickles, lemons, and the chopped mint and parsley leaves that she’d picked from the potted plants on her windowsill.
“No salad?” Nadia said.
“There’s tabbouleh in the fridge.”
Nadia nodded to herself, hesitating for a second before walking back over to the stove. One by one, she lifted the aluminum wrapping off each covered dish, letting the steam escape from the shakshuka and fried kibbeh balls. Yara felt her ears get hot but kept her eyes on the water in front of her, almost at its boiling point. She added a teaspoon of salt and secured the lid.
“What else are we having?” Nadia said, eyeing the inside of the oven.
“Kufta kebabs with tzatziki and yellow rice.”
“What about your father-in-law? You know he can’t eat rice anymore with his blood sugar.”
Yara swallowed, trying to remain calm, a state that was hard to access lately, especially in her mother-in-law’s presence. “I know,” she said, tilting her head toward the electric cooker. “I made bulgur for him.”
“Good, good,” Nadia said, running a hand through her hair as she circled the kitchen. She scanned the light oak floors and white granite countertops, which were spotless despite the three-course meal in progress. Seemingly disappointed, she went over to the eating area, where she picked at a spiderweb hanging from two light bulbs of the chandelier.
Yara sighed. “Sorry, I always forget to dust that thing.”
“Clearly,” Nadia said.
As usual, only a few minutes in her mother-in-law’s presence and she was reminded of all the ways she was failing.
“You know what they say,” Nadia said now, running her index finger against the windowsill, then bringing it to her face to examine it. “A messy house is a sign of a mess within.”
Watching her mother-in-law survey the kitchen as the sun tucked itself behind the pine trees, Yara felt such a longing to be alone, away from the gaze of Nadia’s judgmental eyes. Everything about Yara seemed to irritate her mother-in-law, especially lately. Maybe Yara was too defiant, too questioning. Maybe Nadia resented that she wasn’t able to control her, or that Yara refused to be the kind of woman Nadia wanted her to be, even after all these years.
In the early years of her marriage, Yara had helped Nadia clean the same way she’d helped her own mother as a child: plunging her hands up to her elbows in dishwater, crouching under sofas and tables to retrieve crumbs of food left by Fadi’s younger brothers, ironing and folding all their laundry, scrubbing bathroom floors, her head dizzy from the fumes as she wiped stray pubic hairs from the base of the toilet. Yara had hoped these acts of service would bring her and Nadia closer, but to her mother-in-law Yara was only doing what was expected of her.
When she thought about it, the tension between them began on the day of Yara’s wedding, nine years ago, when Nadia had asked her to start wearing a hijab. Yara was nineteen then, a first-year in college, and she had flown to Fadi’s hometown just days before the wedding—living there ever since. “No thanks,” Yara had said without flinching. They were standing in the bathroom while Yara reapplied her eyeliner, having cried it off twice before. “Nothing against the hijab if that’s what a woman chooses for herself,” Yara had said. “The Quran clearly states it’s my choice. But I’m not really religious.”
Yara felt then the sudden weight of Nadia’s gaze, so disapproving, it made Yara turn away from her own reflection. She swallowed, a soft ache beating inside her, like a bird unable to flutter its wings. Nadia shook her head slowly, her eyes assessing Yara—this was the sudden weight, her mother-in-law’s judgment. “It’s not just about religion,” Nadia said, her lips curled in disapproval. “You wear it out of modesty, to prevent hakyelnas. We don’t want people to start talking.”
People, Yara had thought, swallowing hard. Of course.
Yara had been unsure about moving to the South, a place she’d known about only from her favorite southern writers: Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison. From their books she’d gathered that southern culture was not so unlike her own: full of loud and large close-knit families where women married young and had many children, focused on conservative values with an emphasis on religion or tradition, with an adherence to recipes that were passed down through generations. Even the obsession with tea at every possible social gathering—though southerners preferred it iced while Arabs served it boiling—felt like a point of connection. The similarities filled her with both comfort and dread. What kind of life would she have in the suburbs? Would she fit in? Or would she feel like she’d felt all those years in Brooklyn: disconnected, unseen, alone?
She wished she had been able to voice her hesitation to her family back then. But she struggled to articulate her feelings, even to herself. Words diluted things, made them smaller. Growing up, she could not explain how it felt to look out the window every night, waiting for Baba to come home, or describe the fear that consumed her when his shouts echoed through the walls or the feeling of her face pressed against her pillow to drown out the noise, only to realize that it was coming from inside her.
Drawing, she soon learned, helped soothe the twisted feeling inside her, the dark pit of fear in the center of her chest, the certainty that something was constantly wrong. Alone in her cramped bedroom, she drew what she saw through the window: a row of red brick houses, the orange pink shimmer of a sunset, yellow dandelions dancing beneath the golden sun, the swirling dark turbulence of a night sky, a collection of vignettes, drawn in a frenzy, that left her in a strange state of emotional curiosity, as if her stiff heart had cracked open to the world. She hoped the pleasure she felt in these states would be enough to heal the darkness that rumbled through her, to cure the war inside her head. But these days, she felt very far from the person she wanted to be.
Now, as Nadia made her way toward the fridge, Yara slid in front of her and opened it first, scanning the glass shelves to make sure they were clean. With her back to her mother-in-law, she said, “It’s been hard to keep up with everything lately.”
“I can see that,” Nadia said.
Yara’s face went hot, despite the cold air from the fridge. She wanted to confess to Nadia that she really was trying her best, but lately there was this overwhelming darkness that seemed to stand beside her like a shadow.
“I know you’ve been struggling,” Nadia went on, as if she could read Yara’s mind. “But it’s time you pulled yourself together, dear. For your family’s sake.”
Yara shut the fridge door and returned to the stove, where she lowered the heat on the rice. She leaned her hip against the counter and watched Nadia open the fridge, lift out one container after another, and scan the bottom for an expiration date, muttering to herself when she eventually found one to toss away.
“Why don’t you come with me to the mosque this Friday?” her mother-in-law said, after pulling out the bright green tabbouleh and tasting it from a cupped palm. “A little socializing might cheer you up.”
Yara frowned and opened a cupboard, pretending to look for something inside.
“You haven’t been in a while,” Nadia went on, her hand coated with olive oil and specks of fresh parsley and mint. “And the women have been asking about you. It would be good to show your face.”
“Sorry, I can’t. A new term starts tomorrow, and I’ll have a lot of work to do.”
“Right. But you’re coming to Nisreen’s baby shower next weekend, no? She would be so upset if you missed it.”
Yara closed her eyes, her face hidden behind the cupboard door. Her mother-in-law knew she wasn’t a lively person, preferring to be alone or with her immediate family, and yet she still insisted on inviting her to every Arab event in town. Their small town had an even smaller Palestinian community, with perhaps two dozen families, but Nadia knew mostly everyone, all the women coming together to form a little village of their own. Yara had accompanied her mother-in-law in the past despite her disinterest, smiling with perfect composure, even joining in on the gossip every now and then to show that she was a good sport. But lately these activities ceased to have any meaning, and she could no longer bring herself to pretend otherwise.
“Sorry,” Yara said, turning the burner off under the rice. “I’m not in the mood to go anywhere.”
Nadia was silent, reaching back into the bowl of tabbouleh.
“You can’t keep avoiding everyone,” she finally said, licking her fingers. “When was the last time you came with me to a wedding or had any of our friends over for dinner?”
Yara shrugged. Technically these women were Nadia’s friends, not hers. She could easily go an entire week and only receive texts from Fadi, the only friend she had.
“It’s unhealthy to keep to yourself all the time,” Nadia continued. “Not to mention how important it is to maintain your social standing in the community. People will start talking if they don’t see you.”
Yes, of course, the people.
“What could they say? I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“As if that’s ever stopped anyone,” Nadia said. “People don’t hear from you for a while and they assume all sorts of things: you’re up to no good, or afflicted with some disease, or God forbid, you’re suffering from something mentally, an evil spirit.”
Yara rolled her eyes. “A jinn, really? This isn’t Aladdin.”
“You act like I’m making this all up,” Nadia said. “You clearly haven’t been yourself, and we don’t want to give anyone a reason to start rumors.”
Nadia looked at her with those hard brown eyes, her expression so serious that Yara turned away. She lifted the bottom of her apron to wipe her forehead again.
“I’ve been worried about you, dear,” Nadia went on. “Your eyes are sunken and your eyeliner is smudged. You look like you’ve aged ten years.” She scanned Yara up and down. “And why are you always dressed in black and wearing leggings? You need to put in more effort. For Fadi’s sake.”
Yara leaned into the counter, wondering how long this would go on. She wanted to tell Nadia that she wished it were as simple as her appearance. She would rather have something wrong with her body, something fixable, than with her mind, which she suspected was the real problem. But she wouldn’t dare admit that to her mother-in-law.
Instead Yara cracked her knuckles and looked at Nadia, at her slumped shoulders, and the way her body bent, as if life had weighed her down.
Yara willed herself to meet Nadia’s eyes. “This is what I like to wear. Besides”—she hesitated—“why don’t you ever tell your son to dress up for me?”
Nadia raised an eyebrow. “That’s not how it works. Pleasing your husband is your duty.”
“Is it?” Yara said. She was laughing now and finding it hard to stop. Of all the mothers-in-law she could’ve had, why did she have to end up with one who was intent on pressuring her to walk the same path she had vowed her whole life to escape? Not that it would’ve stopped her from marrying Fadi, even if she had known. She’d had other problems to worry about then.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Nadia, looking stricken. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you crack a smile, and this is what you find funny? Is it too much to ask for you to put in a little effort, for your husband’s sake? I’ve been trying to hold my tongue for some time now, but enough is enough. You can’t continue on like this.”
Yara stopped laughing and met her eyes. “Like what?”
“Moping around like you’re on the verge of death yourself. You need to toughen up, dear. You have a family that depends on you.”
Yara stepped away from the stove, adrenaline pouring through her veins. “You act like I’m spending my days in bed,” she said. “I take care of the girls all by myself, go to work every day, keep up with all the housework, and have dinner ready for Fadi every night. Maybe if I had a little more help with the girls, I could worry about how I look. But that’s the least of my problems right now.”
“Your children are your responsibility,” Nadia said, shaking her head. “You can’t expect anyone else to raise them for you. If you’re so overwhelmed, then you don’t need to work.”
“No way,” Yara said too quickly. “My job is the only thing I do for myself. Why would I give that up?”
“Why not?” Nadia said. “Fadi makes good money, mashallah. He doesn’t need your help.”
It took considerable effort not to scream. Her mother-in-law rarely missed an opportunity to remind her that Fadi was the breadwinner, as if that wasn’t the norm in her own family, too. Yara’s parents had immigrated to America from Palestine shortly after they married, arriving in Brooklyn with a few hundred dollars in their pockets and no English. The Arab community in Bay Ridge and Baba working day and night to provide for them was how they’d survived.
In the early months of her own marriage, Fadi was still a cashier at his father’s gas station, where he had worked since he was seventeen. Every night, Fadi came home to their cramped apartment complaining about Hasan, vowing the next shift would be his very last. “I don’t see how a father can treat his own son like this,” he would say. “Always looking down on me, never says thank you or nothing.”
It wasn’t until Yara became pregnant with Mira that Fadi thought seriously about his next steps. Without a college education, he decided he would be better off saving money to open his own business than trying to get another job. At the time, Yara was enrolled in a local college and qualified for financial aid and a full academic scholarship. Each semester, after her tuition was paid and her books bought secondhand, she received a substantial check in the mail, which Fadi had her sign over to him. When they’d finally saved enough, Fadi quit his job and started a wholesale company with his high school friend Ramy. Together they purchased large quantities of general merchandise—tobacco accessories, energy drinks and shots, pain relievers, sunglasses, gloves, batteries, and so on—directly from manufacturers, warehoused them, and sold them in smaller quantities to convenience stores all across the state. The business was financially solvent within six months and quite profitable within two years. ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
