Amir hasn’t stopped reading yet. He only raised his voice like somebody who has a visitor while praying. Shahin and Shadi were staring at his mouth with their mouths hanging open.

Amir said hastily, “Hurry up. Write. I need new information. Tell Mahin to write to us.”

I said, “You write.”

He said, “You write better.”

I frowned.

He tapped me on the shoulder, “Good job. Write. It’s for our future.”

Chapter 26

26

What is the future like? The future must look like the old woman that Amir showed me in the park, like a yellow crumbled envelope. I cannot visualize the future. I don’t know what it is made of. Until now, I could only imagine the future. But now that I am close enough to it, the future is losing its mystery day by day, and I want to stop it right there.

I want to stop and look at myself and my life. From far away like a lover, and close by like a stranger. I don’t want to move to Canada. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days adjusting to life over there because by the time I find my way around, life will be all over.

Father had put away some money for my dowry before he passed away. Shahla had announced her hatred of all relationships with the male species. Mahin had a fiancé and could not wait any longer. It was my turn to get married. As it happened, Amir asked for my hand, and very soon I joined the crowd of married women.

As soon as you get married, the first thing that happens is that a big clock is hung in your bedroom; everybody’s counting the seconds to hear the big news. Then someone cooks stew with prunes for you, and another brings you sour fruit rollups. In the bus someone gets up and offers you their seat, and in the streets everybody unconsciously stares at your stomach that by now is big and round, meaning that it is a boy.

Then your days pass wondering about the benefits of a C-section versus natural birth. Time passes and the others begin to see in your face the changes that you already feel within. You prepare clothes for the baby in your free time, and argue with your husband about names. Then one day the pain arrives like someone you were expecting but whose arrival you couldn’t believe. Fear takes over. Fear of more and more pain. You go to the hospital, and the next day they put a small and unfamiliar being in your arms that reminds you of a wet sparrow, and they ask you to breastfeed him. From that moment on, you become a mother.