I was nineteen when my husband walked out. It was not a fight, nor was it the first time I’d accused him of leaving to go find his precious Tamara. But this time he left and didn’t return, not even to collect his things. He didn’t show up at his job, and I spent the first week of his absence searching for him in hospitals and police stations. Jamil, Mhammad’s best friend in Kuwait, didn’t know where he had gone either.

Jamil’s face was like nothing I had ever seen on a man. He looked devastated, as if he were the one who had lost his spouse.

“I believe he’s made his way back to Palestine, maybe to look for …” Jamil hesitated. His eyes welled up. “Tamara. He went to Tamara, I think.” My heart sank. There was that name again—a name with no face, voice, or story.

“He told you about Tamara?” I asked. “Do you know her? Who is she? Where is she?”

Jamil looked away. “I’m sorry, Nahr. I hope he will at least give you a divorce so you can, enshallah, remarry and not live in limbo.”

Divorce? I hadn’t even considered the possibility until Jamil said the word.

I have revisited that moment with Jamil many times. Knowing what I do now, I see in his face what was not evident to me then. I know now the meaning of Jamil’s tears, the secret in the furrows of his brow. Tamara meant something to him too.

I met Um Buraq in the wreckage of my marriage. I was at the wedding of a former classmate, who was a distant relative of hers. I didn’t know this classmate well and only went because Sabah begged me. “If you don’t want to leave the house for your own good, then do it for me. I really want to go, but I’m too shy to go alone,” she told me.

“Liar. Lots of our friends are going.”

“Well, you’re the most popular, and everyone will want to see you dance. It’ll give me status if we go together.”

“Still a liar.” I stared at her, half smiling. She knew me well enough to know that I had already given in. And I knew her well enough to know that she was sincere. Sabah was truly sorry that my marriage was over.

“Great! It’s settled. I’ll pick you up in the morning. We’ll get a scrub at the hammam, then we’ll get lunch, get our hair done—”

“No! I’ll go to the wedding, but I’m not going through a long salon day too. It’s not like I’m part of their family,” I protested.

“It’s not for the wedding, Nahr! You look terrible. And you smell!” It was the middle of the afternoon and I was still in my nightgown. My hair was an unwashed, frizzy mess. I hadn’t bathed in days.

“Fine. Since you’re paying!”

For many years, I have wondered what my life would have been had I not agreed to go to that wedding. It was the first time I’d been outside the house in weeks. I had taken too much time off from work and expected to be fired soon.