As a child I was lavished with attention for being Laila’s daughter. In fact, that was the extent of who I was. “Inti bint Laila?” You’re Laila’s daughter? “Yee! Habibti!” For years I would freeload off of my mother’s entitled adoration, reaping its benefits. I didn’t have to do a thing to be loved, I just had to be. But as I got older the same people who’d kissed and pinched my cheeks would try to talk to me, assuming that I possessed her charming attributes only to discover that I didn’t. My conversation was awkward, my gestures uncertain—a handshake or air kisses, and if the latter, two kisses or three? As an adult, my presence was off-putting.

I took a deep breath and tried again. “When you told me you were beautiful and I was average, I felt bad, because that’s true, and I can’t believe you would actually say it to me.” My chest was heaving up and down, little bubbles rising like in water about to boil, rushing to the surface and popping in my throat. I couldn’t see anything, not the faces of the others around the circle, not the list on my lap, not Charlotte beside me. I didn’t want them to know these things. I didn’t want anyone to know. I felt something on my knee—Charlotte’s hand. “Tell her, ‘that’s not true.’ Tell her!” she snapped.

“No.”

“Say it!”

“I can’t.” And I really couldn’t. “I want to go home!” Richard helped me up from the chair and onto my feet, but I collapsed into him, feeling exhausted and numb. He held me, kept holding me; he was so warm I didn’t want him to let go. He walked with me in his arms to Greg and rolled me into him. Greg squeezed me hard. Richard instructed me to get a hug from everyone, and I obeyed, passed from one person to another. When I arrived at Charlotte, I was sobered by the sight of her. Before she could hug me I sat down and tried to collect myself, straightening my back and wiping the tears off my face.

In our room that night, Molly told me it was almost frightening, the way Charlotte seemed to be channeling me.

“It was like she could relate to what you’ve been through,” Molly said. “She was genuinely upset when you were reading your list, which doesn’t surprise me. It was really sad.”

It’s true: she had seemed upset. It was validating, in a way, but I didn’t want Molly to know how much it meant to me. “Please,” I said, folding my pillow in half and turning onto my side. Other Arab women have been mutilated by knives, shrapnel, acid, bombs, and I was shaken because my mother told me I was average? Is narcissism an inherited trait?

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