More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
She’d experienced this before: she’d been a warrior when her father’s cancer had almost killed him and again, two years later, when her mother’s heart had nearly stopped. She’d managed the doctors, the driving, the medications; she could give an injection as smoothly as any nurse and could handle radiation drugs like a specialist. “You’re our rock,” everyone told her, but that reputation didn’t feel like a compliment anymore. It felt like neglect. She was juggling so much
Reema thinks they’re fuckers but the job pays thirteen an hour so she smiles and nods. That’s how you survive when you need white people to help you—you just keep all the shit inside and collect your paycheck and thank God you can see the dentist once a year.
“Behind you is the sea. Before you, the enemy.” I glance at him then continue. “You have left now only the hope of your courage and your constancy.”
“Yes.” He stared at her somberly. “In this house, we smile. So you have to smile at least once a day.” He burst into rumbling laughter at her surprised look. “Seeing you in our house is like waking up to a dream. Stay as long as you like, angel.” She thought about his words now, as she sipped Sits’s coffee. How they’d struck her as weirdly sentimental. So awkward and earnest. Her grandparents spoke in casual poetry, dropping phrases like “you’re blooming today” and “you bury me because I love you so much.” They always, always, always called her habibti and ya ayooni. My love. My eyes. The fact
...more
How I love Arabic!
“Food is love. You have to pass your love into the food,” Sits said solemnly, like she was reading from her Bible. “We lived during three wars. Lentils kept us from starving. Your Seedo and I—we love eating them. It reminds us of those days.” “Why would you want to remember? If they were such bad days.” “They were terrible,” Sits said, nodding. “But it’s good to remember. So you can look at your life now and say alhamdulilah.”
He startled awake, only to have Abu Sharif pat him on the shoulder and say soothingly in Arabic, “Sleep, brother. I know they gave you a hard time. Sleep. All is well.”
Fucking IOF
