A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

He wanted to mask the smell of alcohol on his breath,

Bro

She weaves through the guests, lifts her cupped hand to her forehead in adaab to the uncles seated on the couch,

a nine year old bro

Or that time when Amar, Abbas, and Abbas’s brothers, Saif and Kumail, passed a joint around for the first time, the windows open, fan on, candles and incense burning. Abbas made him feel that he had a brother, as though that bond was possible for him.

I cant take men seriously

Why can’t she continue to throw a fit like Amar, scream back at Baba until her voice is hoarse, bang the walls and furniture until something breaks. Why instead does she wait, swallow her pride and anger, and return to Baba not hopeful that he will give her what she originally asked for, but that he will not hold having asked against her.

There is something about the boys from their community that disappoints her: they do not work as hard as they could, there is a listlessness about them, a lack of longing for another kind of life. They could be anything, go anywhere. With no one to deny them. Any word that is said against them is only to ask: where have you been, and why did you go? How lucky to have a question like that directed toward you. They are the young men of their families. They carry the family name. Everything is designed to cater to them, to their needs, to bend to their wishes. But they just gather in each other’s front yards and reenact the same summer afternoons.

“No one can help me.” A break in his tone. She thinks of how they are told that God wants to help His creations, how He says: take one step toward me and I will take ten steps toward you. She is only human, but still, if her brother would only speak to her, be honest with her, she would step a hundred times toward him.

She was speaking with such little patience. Baba blinked at her. Hadia sensed a new space opening between them—a space in which he looked to her for answers—and realized she could say anything.

What had she done to her brother, so that she could survive, so that she could be the one who thrived?

“You have a choice, Amar,” Hadia had advised him years ago. “All of us are in this same boat, but you are the only one who chooses to thrash about, making unnecessary waves. You can be still. You can go with the flow. That way you’ll save energy to swim when you need to.”

He had to pace himself. He lifted his palm and the bartender returned to a conversation he was having at the other end of the bar. On the TV the Warriors were playing and he imagined the living rooms across the country where the basketball game was on and a family gathered to watch and a dad opened up a beer and offered it to his son, who was twenty-one, no sneaking or shame necessary. This is how he imagined it might be for the rest of the world—simple and easy.

Like ur crazy

“We have to be very gentle with Amar. We have to be careful to not upset him.” “Yes, God forbid we hurt Amar’s feelings. God forbid we say anything to him, or ask him to have even an ounce of consideration for any one of us.”

DEADASS

“What’s it like?” she whispered, their old game,

Corny ahh game

“I know Amar is good. I know Amar wants to be good. But I want to be with someone who is a harmonious fit. Do you think his heart is open to the life we have?” “If that is what you want, my brother cannot be that for you. He cannot be that for any of us.” For years afterward that would be the line she returned to, asking herself why she had replied the way she had. But in that moment she had not wanted to deceive Amira, had not wanted to draw her any closer to the same chaos they were all suffering from.

Literally

When Amar was little she stayed up late after putting him to bed, secretly read books for an answer on how to parent him. She sat through every parent-teacher meeting mortified at how his teacher spoke slowly, assuming Layla could not understand. She tried to become the mother he needed. Preparing herself, enlarging herself, educating herself, only to have let him down the way she had.

“Ami, no one will be caring about anybody,” Mumma said, “not until everyone has made it to the other side, to heaven.” “How will we know what our faces in heaven will be, how will we reunite if everyone who has ever existed is there?” He had begun to cry. He did not want this life to end. He did not care for houses made of rubies or rivers of honey, not if the sound of the shell separated him from them. “We will find you,” Baba had said, “don’t worry about that. Just worry about your deeds. I could find you anywhere.”

The Prophet was the leader of the entire ummah, his every action an example, but when his grandson climbed his back, he had bent the rules, and what if it had been because it was more important to protect a child from pain than to be unwavering in principle? Maybe it was the exceptions we made for one another that brought God more pride than when we stood firm, maybe His heart opened when His creations opened their hearts to one another, and maybe that is why the boy was switched with the ram: so a father would not have to choose between his boy and his belief. There was another way. Amar was sure of it. He wanted them to find it together.

Though you did not know it, you had divided the attention of our home. If Hadia and Huda were on one side, you were on the other, and Layla was turned to you. Your sisters were resilient; little denials and little losses and lectures did not alter the course of their day. You were stubborn with your sadness. You would enter it and not leave. And instead of softening, I hardened in my approach.

But it was not until my own fears were echoed in comments from my friends that I found myself facing them and finding comfort. People would question me, how did you let your daughter move so far? Too much independence is not good for a woman. To protect her from their judgment, I would defend her, and only after I defended her aloud again and again did I realize that I believed what I told them. “Hadia will be fine. My daughter is brave and capable. She will know what to do. I trust her.”

We pray together and when it is time for us to ask for what our hearts desire, my first wish is that he remain steadfast in faith, and then, if he does not, that he never believe that God is a being with a heart like a human’s, capable of being small and vindictive.

‘I used the wrong words. I acted the wrong ways. I will wait, until you are ready. I will always wait for you.’ ”

Of all my mistakes the greatest, the most dangerous, was not emphasizing the mercy of God.