She dreamed that she bore her daughter’s child and that it was healthy and could recite the opening chapter of the Quran, which it did over and over again, sprinkling it every so often with “you will marry again.” When the service came to a stop, she woke up and believed, just for a moment, that it was true.

We are from God and to Him we return, she muttered to herself as the car started up again and she watched the countryside roll by on her way home.

Fat, thick, raw silence. My mother will be sad tonight and her food will not be tasty. You can’t drink these aches without spitting them out somewhere. Farah’s daughter will go on to have healthy children, but Farah will bring us her tragedies, sew them under my mother’s skin, and walk away; stitches as penance for an easy life.

7 SORAYA Visas

7SORAYAVisas

I am a new breed. A rebel. My mother and her sisters can spill a story from any woman, but I can make a man talk. I am in between. Familiar ears. Safe mouth. I have men as friends, as well as lovers.

Black leather, like cool with gold leather on the shoulders, and a little fringe like spaghetti. Droopy mustache on either side of his lips. Looks like a Mexican, I’d say, but no, like a man in charge of himself, he says.

Not typical visa entry, not like the others:

Student Visa Who Hangs Out With Arabs

Student Visa Who Hangs Around With Non-Arabs

Instant Citizen Who Came In On A Relative’s Citizenship

Illegal Immigrant Who Came In On Tourist Visa And Never Left

Citizen By Virtue Of Marriage

After those categories come two more:

Works His Ass Off (Have to if you want to make it)

Doesn’t Work A Lick (America is the Land Of Opportunity and should be handed to you on a silver platter. Besides, it’s hard to get used to an 8, 10, or 12 hour day.)

Walid doesn’t fit into those categories anymore. He started out as Student Visa, then went to a new category: Student Visa Who Made Friends With Americans. He went to technical school, and now he repairs copy machines and pretty much Works His Ass Off.

He tries to avoid the Arab community because they are too expensive to be around. “Someone is always getting married, having a baby, getting a new job, and you have to spend too much money on them. I spend money on no one and no one spends money on me.” That, and they are very nosy. Nosy people are like magnet and steel to each other, and Walid’s mother, Um Radwan, is the nosiest woman on earth.

He’s got a routine too.

At work he drives his own car because it comes out as more profitable than driving the company car.