Chapter 10 · Untitled Chapter

For a while nobody said anything, and the silence did the work that shouting does in other houses.

My uncle turned his cup a quarter turn on its saucer, gave up on it, and looked at me instead. "Maha. You have had your coffee. The car is at the gate."

"I have had my coffee," I said. "The car is patient. It can wait at the gate with the driver."

One of the cousins laughed and turned it into a cough against his fist.

"Ammi," I said, because he is my father's brother and the word costs me nothing in a room where I mean to cost him something, "you have been generous with the coffee tonight. Do not spoil it by hurrying me."

His jaw worked once. He has been obeyed in this room since before I could read, and I watched him find out that the room had changed its mind about him without telling him first.

My Abaya was in order. My Shaila was where it belonged.