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He seemed to slouch and she realized that his confidence had left him, as though confidence were a physical feature as much a part of him as his winning half-smile.
it was a comfort to sit next to him, the kind of comfort only possible between two people who had been in each other’s earliest memories.
to give her daughter love was a way to give her love.
What was it about an apology that was so difficult? It always felt like it cost something personal and precious. Only now that she was a mother was she so aware of this: the stubbornness and pride that came with being human, the desire to be loyal and generous that came too, each impulse at odds with the other.
Abbas knew when to stop fighting with his parents, and how to guard the secrets that would hurt them, and in turn cause him to be hurt by their rejection of him. He did not resent that this was the way it had to be. But Amar could not do that without feeling like a hypocrite.
She might be the bravest person he has ever met, saying what she thinks and feels without fear or hesitation.
She was stunned and stunned again by them, and her love for them. How much had been lost? Never made it into her memory, never been captured in a photograph?
How unlucky that one person has the power to determine the shape of another’s life.
it is the one who loves less who has the privilege of being able to express their feelings easily and at all.
resenting how one decision made at eighteen would now determine the shape of her life.
Against her own instincts, her own intuition, because she wants to believe him, because she has known him his whole life and cannot fathom a change so drastic he would be made unfamiliar to her.
How were they to know the moments that would define them? It will affect his personality for his whole life, someone is saying to her, and whose fault will it be then?
What had she done to her brother, so that she could survive, so that she could be the one who thrived?
About how important it was for one to choose the right friends, that it was one’s friends who were the truest reflection of the self.
there was no real way to quantify the goodness of a person—that religion gave templates and guidelines but there were ways it missed the mark entirely.
one moment to change your understanding of your child drastically. For a stranger to come into her home to tell of her daughter’s doing—it is no easy blow.
Theirs was a love that acknowledged the individual as separate from the whole, from the family as a unit.
nothing hidden remained so, time had a way of unearthing the truth.
How was she to know then what it would be like to raise her children in an unfamiliar land, a land that held no history for her but the one they were making together.
he realized that the anger had dimmed, and he was surprised to find that after anger, or alongside it, was not a bitterness or resentment, but regret. Afsoos was the word in Urdu. There was no equivalent in English. It was a specific kind of regret—not wishing he had acted differently, but a helpless sadness at the situation as it was, a sense that it could not have been another way.
How odd the current of one decision,
If there was so much he lacked in faith—the ability to fully believe and follow—why could he not also lack the desire for faith?
A punishment was a mercy. It marked the end of a sentence. Without one, he could not imagine recovering from his shame.
even if I were to walk outside, if I were to approach him, stand by him, shoulder to shoulder, same height as we are now, we would never be near, never be close. To stand side by side in that way, to stumble through my thoughts until I had something to say, would only emphasize it—the impossibility of us.
Please God, she prayed, let ours be a successful and happy marriage. Let us maintain what we have. Let us create a loving family. And let me always feel that this life is mine, experience it proudly, fully, and ever alive.
her independent happiness was tied to his.
He had been cheated out of knowing the best of his father; his father had reserved his kindness for others.
“Don’t you know—that’s the thing—everyone is not just good. Everyone is trying to be good. And everyone feels this way sometimes, that they are not good, and not good at trying either.”
He thought his anger would never be extinguished. Now he had exhausted his anger, exhausted himself, and found that what was left—what was inexhaustible—was longing and regret, each feeling fueling the other.
We taught you one way, but there could be others. We don’t even know, even we can only hope. How many names are there for God?”
Her children would all leave. But Rafiq would remain a blessing in her life, the center, the constant, the only one who truly bore the weight of this moment the way she did.
Only after her worst fears were confirmed did she realize there had been no use in letting her fears determine her decisions. She was finally free of them. She finally knew: she wanted Amar there in any state, under any circumstance, regardless of what anyone had to say about it.
she knew that if she were granted one more moment, then another one was what she would ask for.
She could live around her son for a hundred years and even then, when it was time for them to part, she would think—but it has been too brief,
The overwhelming feeling now, as it was almost over, was that she wanted only to love them more, to love them better.
I know that my daughters will be fine, as they are not only cared for but also completely capable of caring for themselves, providing for themselves,
it is as though we live until we become other people entirely, keeping only that same need for hope, for comfort. And how miraculous it is to me that we receive in this world the very things we need from it, how tonight it is another stranger who has stepped forward to play that same part, help me get through this night until morning.
That was my first child in the hospital room cradling her first child. It was a miracle if I ever witnessed one. She held
the baby and I did not know if the baby was a boy or a girl and nothing mattered but that everyone was alive and here together.
I had found myself in a strange predicament. I had laid the foundation of our family on the principles of our faith and our customs. I had set standards for what we expected of each of you, hoping that you would rise to meet them. In our family, in the culture of our home, and indeed in the texture of our religion, there was the truth and there
was the lie. There were sins and there was a steadfast adherence to faith. But when Layla came to me—it was I and not you who was caught. I had created neat confines to help us move through the world, only to see you, my son, disregard them all, and I was finding I did not have the heart to uphold the very standards I myself had set.
We raised them here hoping. Now it was out of our hands. They would do what they liked. Maybe it had
always been out of our hands. Maybe anything we could have wanted to instill in them was, at best, a hope.
what I never told any of you, never even explored within myself, is that it has been a habit, my faith, a way of living I never questioned, and once you three were born it was for you all that I adhered to it as I did. I wanted you three to grow with an awareness of God, with that order
and compass and comfort it provided, safe from the dangers I could not imagine and could not protect you from.
we must imagine for one another seventy excuses before landing on a single judgment,
