Chapter 15: Salma (2007) - The Daughters of Rosebud

Ruby starts doing drop-off and pickup. We are two women approaching middle age, trapped in the same moment of history, unable to find our way out or to each other.

Poppy no longer stays after school. I am devastated by this loss. She has forgotten me so readily, so easily. Even though it came at the end of a long day with kids, I had come to rely on that time together. It filled something in me. Not teacher. Not mother. Perhaps the closest description is aunt. And again, I’m hit by the loss of something I have never had and will never be. There are times I almost regret having Poppy miraculously wind up in my life.

Sometimes, I send Ginger out. Sometimes, Poppy, as if detecting the unrest, says “Mamby’s here” and dashes off to meet Ruby across the school lawn. Sometimes, Ruby and I silently look at each other over Poppy’s head as the din of school fades around us. I tell myself this is only for two weeks, after which Ruby will return to Chicago and we will revert to our routine.

Why did Ruby discard the diaries and the video, items she clung to for almost two decades? To spite me? To spite herself? I’m so confused.

Having been given the promise of a piece of Asma, just to have it pulled away, almost feels worse than the numbness I’ve been living with for all these years. I have never thought so much about Ruby and Asma’s relationship. All I know is that Asma risked it all for her. What secrets did those diaries contain? What does Ruby know about Asma that I don’t? What does Ruby remember? What the diaries have denied me, Ruby must still possess. Perspective about my family, Asma’s feelings about me. If I can’t read the diary, then I must get these thoughts directly from Ruby. My feelings of angst and desire consume me.

If it wasn’t the middle of the school year and I didn’t have these students, I don’t know that I would be able to get out of bed.

One day Marlene comes to pick up by herself, except she’s on time. It is our first time alone since Rainforest Night. I can feel myself wanting to connect with her like usual, to hear her goofy and sly take on something, to draw me out of my shell and make me giggle. But I hold back, and I can see that she’s doing the same. It’s awkward. Whatever friendship and intimacy we had formed is behind a thick wool curtain that we are each too scared to draw back.

I am about to ask how the divorce proceedings are going when she says, “She’s really trying, Sal.” And again, I feel like an ass.

As I accompany my class back from the cafeteria one day, the school secretary hurries over to me and whispers, “Your uncle is in the hospital.”

My mind is on fire. If something happens to him, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive myself. I race to the hospital and find him strapped to all kinds of machines in the emergency room. Oh, how I hate hospitals.

“I’m fine now, baitay. Everything is okay. My heart was going crazy, and I thought it best to call an ambulance.”

He looks so small in the hospital bed. “Honestly, Mamoo,” I say through my tears. “You didn’t have to go to such lengths to get my attention.” I have not been attending him the way I should out of my own petty grievances. I know he’s ill, and yet I have still pushed him away. Why am I punishing the best person I have ever known? He will not be with me forever. I have so few people. I cannot afford to lose any more.

He cups my face with his wizened hands. “Salamander the Great.”

I promise myself to live in the now with the people who love me best because time is short.

It is Halloween, a day where little schooling is accomplished. The kids do their best to stay on task in the morning, but after lunch, there is no competing with the coming parade and class party. Parents arrive shortly before 2:00 to help their kids don their costumes and set up the room for Halloween games and treats. At the top of the hour, the school gathers outside where some older kids will lead the parade on bikes riding around the large residential block on which Sunnyside Elementary sits. Even though the parade starts by grade level, in a matter of seconds, friends from different classes have found each other, and little siblings have found their big siblings, and it has become a joyous skeleton-and-ghost-filled mob. Parents and neighbors line the streets, waving and cheering.

I take up my spot at the end of the parade. I dress up the least possible, sometimes a clown wig or a witch’s hat. There is no competing with Emil’s Cat in the Hat or the art teacher’s take on whatever cultural phenomenon is current, this year Bumblebee from Transformers.

I hear someone call my name and see Marlene and Ruby and Bear rushing past. Bear is in a Curious George costume, running to join the parade. Marlene’s hair is the color of the changing trees.

Ruby is about to walk past me when I surprise myself and her by saying, “Can we talk?”

She freezes. I recognize Poppy’s eyes in hers, large and round. I have caught her unprepared. She is as scared as I am. It hits me that I’m talking to a person who is not healthy. She cannot meet my eyes. Her hands are shoved deep in her pockets, and she looks hunched over. She is trying to hold it together, and unexpectedly, I feel a deep empathy for her. I want to assure her that it’s okay. Maybe Mamoo and I aren’t the only ones who didn’t escape. Maybe Ruby is caught in that same net, writhing, unable to break free.

It is sunny and crisp outside. We both face forward, watching the parade of liveliness march further and further away, leaving us in its deserted wake. We watch Bear plop down in the middle of the road and pull off his costume and, in just a diaper and his Curious George hat, chase the merriment.

Now that I’m with Ruby, I don’t really know what I want to say. I turn to her. I trip over my words and stall out at the same time. “I love having Poppy in my class.”

Ruby remains silent. She does not interrupt. She is not going to make this easy for me.

“I didn’t even know the diary and the videos existed. And I was so shocked. I . . . I . . . I asked Marlene to get them because I just wanted something of Asma.”

She blinks.

“Mamoo told me he gave them to you. After . . .” I pause.

I’m waiting for her to give me a reaction. Any reaction.

“I didn’t know that at first. Maybe it was wrong of me to ask for them. I guess I’m saying it’s okay. I understand.”

Finally, she speaks. “You’re forgiving me? For not giving you something that’s not yours?”

I am trying to follow the double negatives and, at the same time, not take pleasure in the dulcet velvetiness of her voice. This is the most I’ve heard her speak and can’t help but be taken in by her voice. I simply nod, even though I don’t think that’s what I was saying.

“If I’d known through some fluke of ill luck, our return to this godforsaken city would have landed me back with your fucked-up family, I would never have done it. I don’t care that Marlene’s parents live here. I don’t care that this is a more manageable city. I don’t care about some stupid old houses we can’t afford anyway. We would never have come.”

I step back and trip on the curb.

“Do you have any idea what your family did to me?” She advances.

I feel the rough bark of a tree against my back. Is she lumping me in with my parents?

“I loved your sister completely. What happened fucked me up forever, and you think it’s okay to just ask for the one piece of her left? Your whole family is toxic. Just like you. I told you before, and I’m going to tell you again. I want you nowhere near my family. You may be Poppy’s teacher—for now—but you’re not our friend.” And then she strides away.

The day after Halloween is Poppy’s and my birthday. The Day of the Dead. How fitting. Our school does not do class parties for birthdays because it is too disruptive. At morning meeting, the class sings “Happy Birthday” to Poppy. She stands up and takes a bow. Ever since her family units presentation and Ruby being home, she has been showing up in a different way, slowly becoming a part of the classroom community. She has joined Mamoo’s book club, sometimes plays soccer with the boys at recess, and is starting to make friends with Sophie.

And then, without asking me for permission, she takes over the class and leads it in singing “Happy Birthday” to me. I am mortified. I love it. I have managed to block the conversation with Ruby from my mind. But seeing all those bright faces celebrating me cracks me open. What did Ruby mean by I’m Poppy’s teacher “for now”? Was she going to have her moved from my class? How could she put me on the same footing as my parents? Weren’t our roles in what played out fundamentally different?

Later that day, after school, I wait for someone to pick up Poppy. No one comes, and I am upset for Poppy, whose birthday it is, after all. Even though it has been more than two weeks since she stayed late, we easily fall back into our old routine. We go inside, and Poppy starts putting the chairs on the table so that the janitor can more easily vacuum. I go to the staff room to get a snack. I haven’t packed snacks for us, but I do have an apple and a contraband jar of peanut butter locked in my bottom drawer. We squeeze into the basket of the hot-air balloon and make our picnic snack. We have not visited for some time, and there is an awkward quiet.

When we used to hang out after school, Poppy was a font of information, sharing little tidbits and observations. Once she told me that she heard Betsy Scott tell a fifth-grade boy in her office that he would never amount to anything. Another time she told me that Tommy comes into the fairy forest and kicks over the fairy houses. But today she is silent. I wonder how it is at her home these days. I wonder if she hears things. Perhaps things about me. I want to ask Poppy if Mamby returned to Chicago, or what happened last night after the Halloween parade, or if she ever sees Mamby watching videos. I don’t ask. That would cross more boundaries than I can even identify.

“You did a great job with your presentation, Poppy.” This is the first time we’ve been alone since Rainforest Night.

Poppy smiles beatifically.

“I thought you were nervous about public speaking? I couldn’t tell at all.”

“I know. It wasn’t like how I thought it would be.”

“Tell me how it felt.”

Poppy chews her apple contemplatively and then says, “Well, at first I was all tingling, like my stomach was so nervous. And then, after I breathed and looked up, it was just calm. Mawmaw pats Bear’s back when he falls asleep and whispers, ‘Peace, peace,’ and that’s what it felt like. All calm.”

“Wow.”

“Mamby taught me,” she says with pride.

My gut ache on temporary hiatus flares back.

We double-dip our slices of apple in the peanut butter, our knuckles getting stickier. This is the extent of my rebellious streak. Peanut butter in a peanut-butter-free school and double-dipping.

So softly that I question if I’ve heard her properly, Poppy asks, “What does it mean when someone is ‘living in the past’?”

Sometimes she is a mind reader. My usual approach with her is listener. I do not ask follow-up questions because I don’t want her to retreat or feel self-conscious or even be self-aware that what she’s telling me is news. I let her speak at her pace. But today, she gives me no more insight into her question.

“It means that someone is having a hard time getting over something.”

It is now 4:30, a full hour since the last bell rang. Even for Marlene, this is late. Ruby may not know our ritual or how to get into the building after hours. I never want Poppy to feel unwanted but am also aware that she is just a kid at the end of a long day. One who is spending her birthday at school with her teacher. “How about I walk you home?”

It has turned cold. I offer Poppy my jacket, but she declines, even though her arms in her short-sleeve shirt are covered in goose bumps. I put my bag in my trunk and see the flannel blanket Mamoo insisted I keep in my car, along with safety cones and an entire emergency-response kit, replete with flares, in case I’m stranded on my five-minute, city-street commute to work.

“How about we wrap this blanket around you like a cape?” It is pink-and-red plaid with a yellow stripe.

Poppy claps her hands. I fold the blanket on the horizontal edge and dig through my bag for a binder clip to cinch the top. Poppy extends her arms under the blanket and wraps it around herself.

“You look like a girly Dracula.”

She runs to the side door to check herself out in the late-afternoon light and makes toothy Dracula faces at herself and perfects her accent. “Let’s call me Draculina!”

“Ooh, I like that! All right, Draculina, lead the way.”

She picks up a stick and charges with her imaginary sword held high. “Let’s explore on the way.”

“Okay, Draculina Explorer.” We are mixing themes, but what do I care? She’s happy, and we have both caught the scent of an adventure. I carry her backpack and follow her. We walk down a street lined with apartments and duplexes.

I smell onions and garlic and Indian spices cooking and, unwillingly, feel nostalgic. I know I will never taste my mother’s dal again, and even though decades have passed and with the complicated emotions she triggers, I still feel the bite of that loss.

Poppy beats the bushes with her stick and looks up trees. I, too, search the bases of rocks and fire hydrants for treasures because in the last block, she has now become Draculina Explorer Treasure Finder. She stops in front of a pretty two-family unit and cocks her head like she hears something. I hear raised voices, too, but on the tree-lined sidewalk, amid all the old brick buildings, it is hard to tell where the voices are coming from.

“Is this your house?” I ask.

Poppy drops her Draculina persona and, without looking at me, marches up the steps. I follow. Under the front covered patio, the voices coming from the darkened house are clear.

“I’m never enough for you!” a voice screams.

“Ruby. No one is saying that.” Marlene’s voice is slow and calm.

“I know what you think. I see it in how you look at me.”

Marlene says something that I can’t hear.

“You lie! You’re lying to me!”

I would like to leave Poppy in the custody of a loving adult, but that doesn’t seem possible here. I grip her shoulder. As a sign of my own sickness, even though I am immobile, uncertain what to do, I think if I asked Ruby about my sister right now, maybe she would come clean.

“You’re embarrassed . . . Black.”

“What is wrong with you? My children are Black. I don’t have hang-ups around race like you Americans.” Marlene’s accent is strong, and I can tell that she is getting less patient.

I don’t want Marlene to think I let Poppy walk home alone, and at the same time, the loud voices and rawness coming from the house freeze me, unable to knock and unable to leave.

Poppy pulls away from my grasp, opens the screen door, and throws the inner door open. She flips the lights on in the living room, forcing all eyes to her. “Mawmaw, you can’t force someone to be your friend. And, Mamby, even if you don’t like us, you still have to be kind.” She marches into the interior of the house.

It is then that Marlene and Ruby see me standing on their patio and things start moving in slow motion.

“You! You! You dare come here? I told you to leave my family alone! This is because of you! You and your stupid fucking family!” Ruby screams, her arms extend like she’s encompassing the whole world in my list of failures.

Before I can even make sense of what Ruby’s saying and the meaning of it, Poppy emerges with a diaper bag over her shoulder and Bear in her arms. She strides by me with great confidence and simply says, “It’s time to go.”

I stand motionless watching the two scenes unfold around me in two directions. Poppy marching down the block as resolutely as she can while holding a remarkably docile eighteen-month-old in her arms that is far too big for her to carry. Ruby yelling things that don’t make sense. And then a pot gets thrown. At me? At Marlene? I don’t know. It is stopped by the screen door, and terra cotta flies everywhere. The sound of breaking things and the iron smell of dirt, specks of which make their way through the screen and land on my face, arouse me from my stupor. I run after Poppy and Bear. I have no idea what’s happening inside that house, but it has nothing to do with me. I worry about Marlene but can’t bother with that now. My job is to protect these children.

By the time we get back to school, I can hear police sirens. I strap a happily babbling Bear into my car, and we sit there for a while with the heat blowing on our faces from the vents making me nauseated, my legs shaky with adrenaline. Poppy is in the back seat with her legs pulled up, head buried in her arms, quietly weeping while Bear pats her on the head, saying, “Peas. Peas.”

I drive slowly back to my bungalow in the cloyingly warm car. There is an animal instinct to protect its young. In humans, babies’ vitals mirror their mothers’ at birth, and then they spend a lifetime finding their own, learning how to physically and emotionally survive solo. It is a reflection of a deeper pact. If you are hurt, I will help. If you are under threat, come find me. But what happens if the parent pretends like the hurt didn’t happen? What if they are the cause of the threat? What happens when the adult becomes complicit in the bad act? Whom is the child supposed to go to then? Love and acceptance are nice, but defending against harm is the basic building block of life.

It comes back to me then, the last time I saved someone, if you can call it that. It is the one thing I have never told anyone, even now. I did not speak it to Mamoo or Aunty in the aftermath. We were all just fragments then, people that, no matter how meticulously we were glued back together, would never be mistaken for being unbroken. I have not spoken it out loud to therapists because, really, what is the point? It’s all just history.

* * *

When I was thirteen, Abu met a friend. It wasn’t the kind of superficial acquaintanceship that immigrants sometimes substitute for friendship. Oh, you’re Indian? I’m Pakistani. We understand each other’s language and eat similar food. Let’s be social friends, never mind we’d never talk to one another in our home countries. No, Abu had more connection with Fazal Karim then he had ever shown with anyone. They met while filling up their cars at a gas station. What made the meeting remarkable was not the randomness of meeting a fellow Punjabi at a gas station, it was the location of the gas station, less than ten minutes from our home. For people that were in wonderment when a character on television referred to anything that made them think of home—for example, a reference to naan—the awareness that another Pakistani family lived a few towns over felt nothing short of a small miracle.

They were probably close to the same age. He had two adult children I have no recollection of, and a teenage daughter named Daisy, who was about five years older than us. For a while, we started a practice of either going to Uncle Fazal Karim’s house on the weekends or he and his family coming to ours. Theirs was no grand house on a lot too small. They lived in a split-level house with white siding that looked almost the same as ours. There was no talk about biannual trips back to Pakistan or how many cars their husbands had. They were like us, working class. Fazal Karim’s wife was old enough to be Ami’s mother and walked stiffly, her upper body covered in a shawl, even in summer.

Abu acted like a different version of himself when he was with Uncle Fazal Karim. They spoke an informal dialect of Punjabi, which Asma and I only partially understood. We helped in the kitchen with Ami and Fazal Karim’s wife, and from there, we could hear them talk about how hard it was to earn a living in this country, how they had been drawn by the idea of plentitude and infinite choices but hadn’t been prepared for the paradoxical lack of both. They laughed. Abu, in a high-pitched giggle we’d never heard before. He slapped his knees and started every story about their past with “yar.” We liked this version of Abu, who remained buoyant for long after the visit.

Uncle Fazal Karim was short and balding with bad breath. He took great interest in us, always wanting to know how we were getting along at school and about our American friends. His sense of personal space was different from any other adult man, Pakistani or American, we’d ever met. He would make comments in our presence about what good girls we were, how quiet and well-behaved, and, while looking at Asma with a wolf’s gaze, would comment on what beautiful young women we were becoming. At the end of our visits, he would pat me on the back and would hug and kiss Asma goodbye. No other father had ever hugged or kissed us. Not even our own. The first time it happened, I looked at my parents to make sure it was okay. Ami looked unnerved and unsure of what to do, and Abu had his back to us, making his way down the driveway to the car. Soon, we learned that Uncle Fazal Karim’s timing was more refined than an elite athlete’s. Somehow, he would find the precise second when no one was looking or we were alone to give Asma a hug that lingered a few seconds too long, a hand on the back that was too low, or a lascivious glance at our developing bodies.

The summer we received our citizenship, Ami and Abu wanted to have a party to celebrate. It seems like that should have been a pivotal part of our family history, but because of what came next, I barely remember it.

That weekend, they invited all the Pakistani families from mosque and the ones we used to visit the year before. And, of course, Uncle Fazal Karim. Mamoo and Aunty weren’t there for some reason I don’t remember, and neither was Uncle Fazal Karim’s wife, who had returned to Pakistan with their oldest daughter to marry her off.

The men sat in folding lawn chairs on the patio and in the grass, drinking tea. The women sat inside in the air-conditioning. Abu basted the chicken legs with a spicy barbecue sauce Ami had made. Someone played tapes of Pakistani music featuring men and women singing about heartbreak in nasally sopranos. The kids all played hide-and-seek in our yard and the tall grass in the adjacent lot.

As dark fell, the kids and men started to shoot off bottle rockets and Roman candles, and the mothers went out to wave sparklers. At some point, I looked around and didn’t see Asma. She loved fireworks, and she was going to miss them. I went inside to find her. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the bathroom on the upstairs level. I took one step down the stairs and saw that the lights were off in the basement. For reasons I cannot explain, I felt pulled. From the landing, I looked into complete darkness. I could have walked those steps blindfolded. Yet I held on to the wall and descended one halting, incremental step at a time. From the distance, I heard the pop pop pop of fireworks.

The air felt heavy. There was a curious lack of sound, and at the same time, I sensed a presence. It is what I imagine space to feel like. Completely silent with the presence of nothing, yet energy thrumming through it that can be felt in the body. I fought the instinct to run and looked around. The stripe of light coming from underneath the bathroom door cast a dim aura into the dark basement. I heard a furtive sound, like someone was trying to move something without being heard. If I’d thought about it, I would have never walked into a bathroom with someone inside. But I was acting on instinct.

I pushed the bathroom door open and stood still. It took me a few seconds to understand what I was seeing. Asma was pinned to the wall by Fazal Karim. He had one hand on her shoulder like a kindly uncle and the other up her shirt. His head craned forward, straining toward her lips. He looked like a zombie, trying to make contact with his prey like his life depended on it. Asma’s body was rigid, her shoulders drawn up, her eyes squeezed shut with her head and neck twisted away. There was a boisterous laugh outside.

And in that terrible millisecond, I could tell that Asma was trying not to offend Fazal Karim at the expense of her own violation. She twisted in his grasp, gently evading, trying not to make any sudden movements. In that way we could read each other in the absence of words, I understood what she was feeling because I was feeling it too. Of course, I understood that what was happening in front of me was wrong. It was bad and dangerous. It was against nature. We were children and, especially in our culture, weren’t supposed to express interest or ask about sex. That was a private thing for adults. But here, he was the adult. He was doing what he was allowed to do. What were we supposed to do? How was I going to extract her from this situation without offending Fazal Karim or getting in trouble?

“Asma?” I said, shy and hesitant. I think back on that moment now and am enraged at my thirteen-year-old self. Why do girls, women, in moments of crisis, speak softer? Children should respect their elders. Men’s needs are more important than your own. It is hard to overcome brainwashing.

In the interminable pause after I called her name, Asma’s eyes opened, bulging like a frightened deer, turned toward the door and me.

“Asma?” I said again.

Fazal Karim turned halfway toward me, and in that distracted space, Asma dislodged herself from his grip. She pushed past him and stood behind me clutching my shoulders. His back to the bathtub, there was nowhere he could go. I have no idea how long it had been since I walked into the bathroom and how long we stood there. But it felt like it lasted hours. I didn’t know how to get ourselves out. All I knew was that I had to keep Asma safe, and I was scared to be in the room with him.

Fazal Karim stood there with hands splayed out. “Baitay, this isn’t how it looks.”

And with those words, my rage cut through any fear or vulnerability. How dare he call us “child”? How dare he tell us that what I saw wasn’t really what I saw? The lights in the bathroom became brighter. I leaned forward, fists by my side, and screamed as loudly as I could. He backed up with his hands up like I was holding a gun. And with him on his back foot, I pivoted, grabbed Asma by the arm, and sprinted up the stairs and out the door to the patio.

Impossibly, the scene outside was unchanged. Men were still sitting around in a big circle, talking and laughing. Moms were still at one end of the patio giggling like schoolgirls. Fireworks were going off in the parking lot across the street. No one had heard me scream. No one came to help. It was like nothing had happened.

I clung to Asma’s hand and dragged her outside into the dark and mayhem and straight into the throng of children who were milling about in the yard. “Daisy! Daisy!” I looked around until I found her. “Your dad’s inside looking for you. He’s ready to go, and he’s really mad!” I’m pretty sure I was shrieking.

Asma pulled me around to the side of the house and put her arms around me like I was the one who had been attacked. My legs trembled with adrenaline. We leaned against the house and sank down to the ground at the edge of Ami’s vegetable garden. Asma ran her hand through the loamy dirt and licked it. Through the sulfurous smoke of the fireworks, we could see Fazal Karim, head craned, looking around. We heard guests saying their salaams, and gradually the air cleared.

We looked up at the night sky, the one that is visible only in the country, the one where, if you look up long enough, you can believe that you may defy gravity and be pulled into the void. That was the first time I understood that we were insignificant to the universe. As millennia of women before us had learned previously, girls were unnecessary and dispensable. The world did not care about us.

Abu cleaned the fireworks debris while Ami cleared the table of serving platters. They were both in an uplifted mood. The night, from their perspective, had been a success. After the last guest left, Asma and I left the safety of our hiding spot and cleared the table and folded the lawn chairs. Every time Ami or Abu asked us to do something, we did it together, never leaving each other’s side.

Later, after the lights were out, I walked to my bedroom, and I heard Asma say to Ami, “Something happened tonight.”

“What is it?” Ami sounded tired and distracted.

“Fazal Karim . . .” Asma paused like she was still weighing whether to say it. “He kissed me really weird.” She whispered the last part so softly that I could barely hear her.

There was a long pause, and then Ami said, “Uncle Fazal Karim.”

“He kissed me like people do in TV shows.”

There was another long pause, and then Ami said in a monotone, “Never tell your father.”

* * *

If a mother’s love inoculates one against the harm the world can so casually throw around, what does a mother’s failure to protect do?

I do not mean to conflate or compare what happened to Asma with what Poppy is feeling. It’s just that it triggers in me the same sick recognition that too often children pay the price for adult dysfunction. That’s the problem with memories and feelings; they don’t correlate neatly to parallel events. They just show up in all their mismatched and unfettered glory.

I was stunned and confused when I heard my mother’s response, and I remain confused now. How was that her first reaction? Not “Are you okay?” Not “Did he hurt you?” Just a flatly intoned “Never tell your father.” It is tempting to attribute her comment to what happened later, a narrative precursor. But no. I think the answer is simpler. Either she had a similar experience in her own life and she simply didn’t know how to handle it, or she was scared at what Abu might do to Fazal Karim, and our already tenuous hold on American life would unravel just like that.

I would have liked to see Abu’s righteous anger sever the ties of male brotherhood from root to shaft in avenging his daughter. What message would that have sent? How would that have impacted their relationship? I can immediately recognize the girls who have been raised in the glow of their fathers’ image of them, the ones who have been raised up and lauded. They carry an easy confidence, comfortable in their own skin, assured that they are brilliant just as they are. Would Asma have trusted Abu more and believed that he really did know what was best for her? Would it have made her pause before she did something to transgress? Would she have not accepted the part in Pippin or not invited them to save them their honor?

As for Asma, she refused to talk about what happened. Shortly after that night, she started changing into miniskirts and tank tops in the back of the bus, had her first boyfriend, and started sneaking out of the house to go to parties with her best friend, Heather. The new pact was far simpler. If you don’t protect me from harm, I will no longer protect you.