She scooped them out with a spatula and let them drain on a paper towel laid over a plate. Then her mother took the tiny amount of oil and poured it into the larger pot, where she mixed it in thoroughly with the rice and lentils. “That’s my secret,” she said with a wink. “It gives it great flavor.”

“You tell me as if I’ll ever be as good of a cook as you are.”

“You will be better in cooking and in many other things than I am, insha’allah.” She set the majaddarah in the center of the table and reaching for the onions. “Call your brothers so we can eat.”

“Before I do,” Reema said simply, “I need your advice.”

Her mother glanced up at her face, recognized its seriousness, and sat down obediently, expectantly, on a kitchen chair.

Reema sat down as well, and spoke slowly. “First of all, you cannot say anything about this to anyone, not even Auntie Layla or Imm Nabeel …”

“Of course not—don’t let it concern you.”

“You know that, last year, Nadia broke up with George.”

“Yes. Siham never gave a reason.”

“Well, today I found out why.”

“The accident? God help her and her mother, she suffered terribly, but she cannot blame him.”

“It’s worse.” Reema told her mother about the invisible damage the accident had rendered to Nadia’s body, about how her uterus had been ruptured and would never allow her to carry a fetus to full-term. She spoke calmly, not looking up at her mother’s face until she was finished. When she finally did, she was shocked to see her mother weeping silently, large, full teardrops streaking down her cheeks.

“Oh, God help us, God help us …”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m more upset that Siham and her daughter have been suffering like this—without anyone’s knowledge. It’s been so long since the accident—nobody knew!”

Reema reminded her mother that they didn’t want anyone to know, especially George. And yet, there was the problem. George, since the breakup, had refused to give up on Nadia, hoping she was going through a bout of depression because of the accident, a cloud that would eventually lift and pass on.

“I swore to Nadia I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Reema confided in her mother. “But I feel like George should know. I heard his parents are pressuring him to marry a girl, a friend of their family, and he is thinking of just doing that. Nadia isn’t giving him any hope, after all.”

Her mother remained silent for several seconds, then said, with a tone of finality, “He deserves to know.”

“But Nadia? She’ll kill me.”

Mama shook her head, as if to erase a nagging thought. “You have to tell him. When you tell the truth, you allow people the chance to heal.”

“What if it doesn’t make a difference?”