Ma, who doesn’t read English, asked me what it said. Instead of saying “secrets,” I said “stories and things,” but I don’t think she believed me. She’ll probably have someone else read the card and translate it for her.

Everyone else, including my mother, was outside eating. I came in to bring some more soda and I heard Maysoun telling her sister-in-law, Dahlia, about my mother, her own sister.

“She lets them speak English at home,” she hissed. “She treats them like American children. She cooks American food for them. The worst thing she does, though, is she lets them talk back to her. If my Tariq or Soraya did that, they would get a beating, and that would be the last of it. And talk about beatings ...”

Then Auntie Maysoun went on and on about how Baba hits us too much and then again how Ma gives in to him and to us and is a softie, which will make us very difficult and ultimately disloyal.

Ma says Maysoun is fake and talks big but has nothing inside her. Maysoun smokes and wears gold jewelry and fancy sandals like a young bride. Ma also says Maysoun criticizes others so much because she can’t accept that her own daughter is practically a whore.

That’s another reason why it’s better to be a boy, because then you don’t have to spend all your time noticing what everyone does wrong.

15 SORAYA The American Dream

15SORAYAThe American Dream

Our house has an endless supply of visitors, as though this were Nawara.

Saturday, Ma made a party for Khadija’s birthday. She knows that if she doesn’t, no one else will. It’s mostly family and food and dancing and gossips, which sometimes gets on my last nerve and sometimes doesn’t.

Today it doesn’t, and I help my mother coax a story from her sister-in-law, Dahlia.

“Dahlia, habibti, tell us what happened to you,” Ma says.

“Maysoun, you can’t want to hear that story again. Shame on you. It’s over and done with and time to move on.”

I pretend I haven’t heard it before. “What happened?” I ask.

“Yulla, go on. Tell her.”

“Tayeb. Okay, okay.” Dahlia settles into her chair and begins. ...

It was a spring-air, flower-smell, Los Angeles kind of day—after all these years I remember it clearly. So many details to tell you: like the huge blue sky in the morning and the black sky in the night that can never get dark. It confuses the days and makes them gray, even when the sun is out.

Wait, you also need to know about my life before the incident.

All right, go ahead, Dahlia, tell us everything.