The day passes in a frenzied blur. I spend it cleaning the bathrooms and deodorizing the carpets. I should be studying for an English test in a few days but I cannot think. I could also be reading another chapter in my novel. I try to read one every month. This month I am working on a mystery, and usually I can get lost in it, even though I have to pause to look up a lot of the words. But now all I can see is Hanan’s face in the semidarkness, sleepily telling me that my accent embarrasses her. I wonder what will embarrass her when she is in junior high school? Will she want a mother who is an executive, who wears powder blue suits and shiny, leather shoes that cost more than our living room furniture? Or a mother who knows all the American music and teaches her to play softball and bake peach pies? Maybe our modest row house in South Philadelphia, with the used dining room set and the worn, burgundy carpets, will not satisfy her. I’m afraid that she’ll grimace when I speak to her in Arabic. That she’ll answer, pointedly, in English.

I’m afraid that I will not be enough for her.

Hanan comes home from school at 3:30 and I ask her about her day. “Fine,” she says, with a shrug. She collects her T-ball equipment, changes into leggings, shorts and her jersey, and hurries out. She yells out a quick goodbye as the door closes. She walks to the field with her girlfriends every day. I imagine them swinging their bats, chattering about when they will graduate from T-ball to “real” baseball, how they will be better than the boys on the team.

I rush to the door, ready to ask her if she wants me to walk her and her friends to the field. But I stop quickly because there is Kristen’s mother, pushing the stroller with her newborn baby behind the girls. She sees me and waves, then says something to Hanan, who does not even turn around. Kristen’s mother glances back at me sheepishly, offering a feeble and confused smile.

Back home, I would go after Hanan and slap her face. But here, Kristen’s mother would call the social services police to come and take my daughter. The only country where disrespect is enforced. I close the door and go back inside.