“Because you were like that before,” Latifa says. I look away and can hear her tongue lapping up crumbs on her lips and teeth. I have never been able to watch her eat. “Maybe Mama’s death made you humble. It made Baba humble and you are just like him.”

Latifa’s words don’t make me angry. It’s as if I am watching two people talking as they face a white wall, but I have no connection to them.

“Do you miss her?” I ask.

“I miss her like someone took my hands. But it’s God’s will. What can you do?”

We are quiet.

Latifa is watching me. “I know you want to ask and I will tell you now because we are sisters. When you left, I did know she was going to die.”

Like someone has taken my breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was what Mama wanted. She was right. Things were bad here and you did not belong in the middle of it. She cursed you, in a way, by putting you in the American school. Mama gave you her desires, but you have Baba’s will, so you will get them to come true for you.” Latifa pauses and breathes heavily. “Would you have gone if you had known?”

“No.”

“That is why I didn’t tell you. Will you stay now? Baba thinks you will, but I know you’re going back to go to the university. You’ve been accepted; that means you should go.”

“I don’t know,” I say, because I really don’t.

The morning sits between us.

“Thank you,” I whisper, but Latifa is studying the dregs in her coffee cup and does not seem to have heard me.

The morning passes and I am still in a dream, though it now is as stark as the white wall that blinds me.

11 HALA Weddings

11HALAWeddings

Later, we go into the living room and Latifa rewinds the videotape that’s sitting on top of the television. “Jalal’s wedding was beautiful. Bad enough you didn’t come for the wedding—I can’t believe you haven’t seen the video. You are such a bad sister.”

“It was only a couple of months ago! I had finals. And no one sent me a copy. Maybe you are the bad sister.”

“It was especially wonderful since it was held in Nawara and the whole village came. How lucky we were to all have gotten permission.” She says this last part like it was rehearsed. I know she hates going to my mother’s village. “It’s a shame you missed it.”

I sit back to eat the peach I took from the fruit bowl. I used to think my father put some sort of magic in the roots of the trees to make the peaches delicious—I would eat them until they made me sick.