“Things are better,” Hanan had replied, but declined to give more information than that. She had thought of moving out, and had even found a terrific apartment just half a mile away from her job. It would be a great walk in the mornings and evenings, and she could easily hop the subway in bad weather. But her father had looked at her piteously when she mentioned moving out, and her mother had yelled that it was improper for a young girl to live alone, and dangerous in this city, and besides, didn’t she care about her parents who had spent twenty-six years slaving to raise her in a good home and provide good food?

But Hanan sensed something behind their attitude, as if they could feel it getting worse. There was something going on, a change in Hanan, and they knew it. She could tell that they thought she’d had enough of them, by the way that she barely stayed home on weekends, or the more and more frequent occasions when she missed dinner with them. “I haven’t talked to you in weeks, you stranger,” her father said to her jokingly once, but she knew from his twisted, tight half-smile that it was meant to spark a conversation that she did not feel like having just then. And it had been strange indeed, and unnerving, when the clinic had called Hanan to schedule follow-up exams.

“Why is a clinic calling you?” her mother had asked suspiciously. “What is going on?” Hanan had shrugged it off and told Mama not to worry, but of course that did not go over too well. Mama enlisted her father, who came to Hanan one evening after dinner, while her mother had conveniently gone for a walk. “I just wanted to check in with you to see how things are,” he said, reaching out as if to pat her hair, but then pulling his arm back as an afterthought. “Is everything OK?”

“Sure, I’m fine,” she replied. But that didn’t stop the inquiries until Mama confronted her one Saturday morning, when it was her father’s turn to conveniently be out of the house.

She stood in the kitchen, her face resolute, but her fingers busy snapping and unsnapping the top button of her housedress. “Hanan,” she said, “I know I’m not a too good mother, but I hope you do not do things because you cannot ask me.”

Hanan paused from her dishwashing and turned off the faucet. “What are you talking about?” Of course this was about the phone call, but what the hell had her mother mentally conjured up?