Before long, I had a new job as a clerk at a private school, and my life continued as it had been before I got married. I still threaded eyebrows on the side. Occasionally I did makeup and nails for weddings and partygoers. The familiarity made me wonder sometimes if my marriage had not just been a dream. Mhammad slowly faded from my thoughts. I might have put him out of my mind completely had not Sitti Wasfiyeh reminded me occasionally that I’d failed to keep a husband for even one year; or had not the inevitable question of why I wasn’t pregnant yet come up when I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in a while. Sabah was usually with me when this happened, and she would intercede.

“This is the 1980s. A woman doesn’t have to have kids right away,” she’d say, or “Nahr is a modern woman. She doesn’t want children just yet.”

Sabah had my back, especially when it came to outsiders. So I trusted her when she confirmed my unease about Um Buraq, and I didn’t return the old woman’s call when she left a message on our machine at the apartment shortly before I was evicted. I thought Um Buraq was just overbearing (though intriguing), but Sabah detected scandal.

“Good thing you’re not at that number anymore,” Sabah said. “You know I don’t like repeating things like this, but I heard that her husband married a second wife because she can’t have kids. She goes by Um Buraq to have a veneer of respectability at her age. But since her husband doesn’t visit her much anymore, there’s no one around to keep her in line. I heard she sleeps with other men. Istaghfar Allah!”

“Well, of course! How else is she going to cool her fires?” I joked. I had heard those rumors too, but that’s what made Um Buraq interesting. Sabah shoved me good-naturedly.

“What?” I protested, and assumed the wisdom reserved for women who’ve actually fucked before. “Someday you will know that bliss,” I said, pretending my experience with sex had been anything but traumatizing.

I remained curious about Um Buraq. The unapologetic confidence she exuded, despite her compromised standing as an abandoned first wife, made me respect her. Somehow she got our family’s telephone number and left a message with my mother. Sabah was unusually harsh because I planned to call back.

“People are already gossiping about you because of your lousy husband. Why would you consort with someone like Um Buraq? She’s also not even a native. She’s Iraqi but pretends she’s Kuwaiti because her husband is,” Sabah said.

“How do you know they’re gossiping unless you’ve participated in the gossip? And what does her being Iraqi have to do with anything?” I shot back.

“Come on, Nahr. You know I’m just trying to look out for you,” she said, and I did. But I hung up on her anyway. Usually Sabah and I would reconcile within a day or two after an argument. But that would not happen this time. It would be a long time before we rekindled our friendship, because I decided that day to call Um Buraq. I didn’t care if the rumors about her were true. I thought she would understand me; that she would know how it felt to be a discarded woman.