Chapter 12 · Untitled Chapter

I turned around.

Not because anyone called me. Because a lit screen in a dark room is the one thing I cannot leave behind, and his was still lit.

Bandar looked at it, then at my uncle, then at the room — the whole majlis, both families, the tray, the men along the wall who had come for the gahwa and stayed for the sentence.

My uncle said, "She will say it herself. The paper names her. She goes with the car." He said it kindly. That was the worst of it. Kindly, and with his ring turned inward, as though the kindness were the part I should be grateful for.

"I will not say it, Ammi," I said. "Not because it is false. Because you have already decided what it means."

"Noura." My aunt's voice from the women's side of the room, one syllable, the way you say a name to a girl who is about to fall off something.

I stayed where I was, at the arch, with my shoes on.

Bandar set his finjan down. He did not drink from it.