As Good as True

by Cheryl Reid

Family duty and pride were tied to honor and shame, how a person was seen, how things appeared, whether a person was respectable or not. All efforts to save face must be made.

Binti was my daughter in Arabic.

“Water is life,” she liked to say. “It reminds us we are always moving, that we are alive.”

I felt content and thought that no matter where we lived, if we were together, we would be happy.

“That feeling you have, how sad you are about your mama, won’t ever go away,” she said. “It’s not supposed to. But one day it’ll be like those trees over there, not like these here.”

The wind was dead and the river was still. It looked dark and peaceful, like a sheet of black glass, but lurking beneath the surface was a current, cold and deep, with snakes and tangles of vegetation that could be your end. People could be the same. They could smile to your face with hatred in their heart while they pulled you down.

But by falling into that embrace, I silently agreed that what he had done had no consequence.

“You tricked everybody, smart and wily, like a girl should be.”

this terrible chain of love, from mother to child, how the love was not always returned in the same measure, how it can hurt as deeply as it could be sublime.

There is no fear in love.