Worst big-mouth thing I know is what happened to late Auntie Huda when she was young. Smart girl, like clean, spring morning air. Good girl too, like never been hit for something she did, never thought something bad, always straight with everyone she talked to. Sweet and gentle, pretty, not beautiful, which is how everyone describes Hala, who I’ve only met a few times.

My uncle Hamdi was in Arizona, in big, greedy America. Huda applied and got accepted by the university there, the same one Hamdi was attending and would later teach at. My grandmother, who is Bedouin, was—and is—conservative like a girdle, but my grandfather had land in Ramallah and was different from anyone else. He was open to new ideas. Against the advice of the entire village, he let her go to America and live with her brother while she studied.

“There is nothing wrong with letting a girl learn as much as a boy does. That is our only hope,” he repeated to the many doubters.

Because it still took her a long time to read and write in English, school was harder in the States and she had to study very late at the library sometimes. My uncle didn’t care; he was always up studying too.

Huda became friends and maybe fell in love with a boy from Jerusalem. Their relationship was formal, Arab-style. He walked her to class, to the library, had lunch with her in the university cafeteria. He lived close to the university with his sister and her husband and sometimes Huda would go to study there when the library closed.

One night it was pouring rain and Huda and the boy were at the library. His car wouldn’t start and his sister and her husband were out of town with their car. She called Hamdi to pick her up, but he lived in another part of the city and said that the storm was really bad and just stay where you are because it’s not safe to drive in this weather and I’ll pick you up when it stops, or in the morning, whichever comes first. So they ran to his house in the pouring, pouring rain. That night she stayed at his house and slept in the sister’s room.