A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Huda opened her mouth to argue but saw how Baba glared at her. Even Mumma looked at Huda angrily. And Hadia decided in that moment that she too hated them all—her brother, who made everything difficult for himself. Her mother, who turned against her own children just to stand by her husband. Huda with the smug look on her face, and how provoking Amar’s anger was like a game to her. They were all cruel to each other. They could not even get through one dinner. She stared at the food on her plate and made a silent pact with herself: she would work hard, she would study, and she would find herself a new family. A new house that never got angry, a home where weeks would pass without a voice raised.

Mumma smiles. She appears to be proud of him. Hadia is confused—how could she be amused by an inherently defiant act? They wait to see what Baba will say. Baba raises his eyebrows and extends his hand toward Amar, palm up, as if to say, well then, proceed. The gesture surprises Amar too. They take their seats at the dinner table and Amar waits until they are quiet and facing him before pulling a piece of binder paper from his pocket, unfolding it, coughing into his fist twice like he had seen in some movie, and beginning to read.

There is a tenderness to their expressions. It seems very possible that Baba will grant him his wish.

Hadn’t she wanted a pet? Hadn’t she wanted to go to the movies with Danielle, wanted to read the book Mumma said she was too young for after flipping through it and forbidding her?

and in that moment her father seems like a gracious man, and Hadia looks up at him, and then again, in awe.

“You’re good at studying,” Amar had told her the night he struck the deal. “Can you help me?”

“I’m so proud of you no matter what happens,” Mumma says to him. “I am so happy you studied.” Amar slams the car door and disappears behind the school gates. He becomes one of the hundreds of kids hurrying to make it before the late bell, and Hadia tries not to meet Mumma’s eyes, afraid that Mumma will realize that she has not once, not ever, told Hadia she is proud of her for studying, even though it is all Hadia does.

Obvious gender bias

Hadia’s breath catches in her. It had never occurred to her to cheat. “Khassam you won’t tell Baba?” “Khassam,” she tells him.

She regards him as younger at ten than her daughters seemed at nine, when they began wearing hijab and praying and fasting during Ramadan. Were you two also that little then? she wonders when she sees her daughters, now thirteen and fourteen.

She returns a plate to the shelf and follows with the second tray. Sometimes he surprises her with his lenience, other times it is his strict adherence that unsettles her. She could guess, but could never accurately predict, where he would stand on a matter. They

Promises meant more to Amar.

They listened to him and were not rude to him and for whatever reason they had decided that not only would they not listen to her, but they would be rude too, openly questioning her decisions—Hadia mumbling, of course you let Amar stay downstairs still, and Huda stomping up

Amar pointed to the glass and said, “Look, when it rains harder the drops join together more quickly.”

Amar is observant

He was so alone in their home. Hadia and Huda were ready to comfort each other.

Maybe cuz boys have it tougher so the mom coddles them

They walked together and he followed closely. What did he notice that she didn’t? He tugged at a leaf of her basil plant as if to show her he was angry still, then let go before it snapped, the bush shaking and drops of rainwater flecking out in all directions. Her son knew how to look closely at the route of rain on glass. She had not taught him this. What could she teach him about how to be in the world other than how to behave?

Mom feels out of her depth

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.

She felt a consistent tug to give to him, to give to all of them, sliced apples and time in the sun, a spot in the shade, but something more too, an instruction on how to be in the world. It particularly tugged at her then, watching Amar kneel and pull at another leaf until it tore. The smell of fresh basil. These were their daily battles. And every day there were fallouts, and reparations made by the time Huda asked for salt and Amar was the first to pass it to her.

There is hurt in his voice, he sounds like a little boy, he rubs his eyelids. One leg of his pajamas has gathered up at his knee.

Layla looks to Rafiq. They have not brought up a plate for him. If he is already grumpy from sleep, refusing him will only make him cry. Rafiq looks at him, and then at his watch. Then he taps at the space next to him, grabs another roti and places it folded on his plate, pours some of the fried spinach next to his egg. Yawning, Amar enters, and half asleep he leans against Rafiq as they eat from the same plate.

The most tender dad son moment

This is a book that covers a lot of ground from sibling dynamics to parenting choices and the impact of race and religion. I appreciated how understated but powerful the drama is, lending it credulity and realism, and the shifting narration works well here.

She looks at her reflection, rubs where she imagines her heart to be, and wonders if there will be dark specks inside her heart if she does not wear a scarf after Wednesday.

Huda’s hair is cut short, like a boy’s.

heads discussing what she does not care about, and she looks past them all to her plum tree, its pretty purple leaves rustling, its branches swaying slightly, and no one surrounding it or standing beneath its shade. How she likes to sit there and listen to the wind pass through its branches.

She wishes her mother had told her about the party, so she could have invited her friends, Danielle and Charlotte, but she dismisses that thought as soon as it comes, realizing she would be too embarrassed to wear this dress in front of them, too shy to explain that the dinner is biryani and that there are no games planned, just children released into the yard, and that the adults are all there because it was more a party for them to mingle and less to celebrate her turning nine.

she looks at it jagged in her palm, turns it around. There are many trees that she appreciates but only two in this world she loves, and the plum tree is one of them. She is lucky that the other is in their front yard, the magnolia tree,

would let her climb onto his back to pluck one. Would he speak to her after Wednesday if she chose not to wear hijab?

Abbas laughs a little and she feels silly, realizing her mistake. Hadia looks down at her dress. If it were a yellow crayon in a crayon box it would be the one that was never used. It would stay sharp and unbroken. That and the gray one. Even the brown would be used before this kind of yellow. Abbas walks up to the plum tree and touches it with his hand also. He is the only other person here her age. She thinks that maybe she should tell him this, and that they can be friends for the duration of the party. Abbas’s hair is a little long for a boy’s, it falls in his face and covers the tops of his ears. If she started to wear a scarf he would never see her hair again. Danielle and Charlotte might still, when they were in the bathroom at school or if they came to her house, but Abbas is a boy who is not related to her and so he would never. “This is my favorite tree,” she tells him. Abbas looks up at it, and Hadia looks up too, past the branches and the leaves and the little plums straight to the bright sky. She squints. “Because the leaves are kind of purple?” “No. Just because.” Abbas nods. They stand side by side. They watch children playing freeze tag, standing still, shocked expressions on their faces, arms stretched out and waiting for someone to tap their fingers. Maybe if she started wearing a scarf she would grow up right away. Maybe she would not be able to run at a party like this one. No boy would be able to touch her to unfreeze her or tag her. And she thinks of ...

Hadia looks up at him. She senses that he is proud. When she is standing next to Baba she thinks that she is ready for it all. He places his hand back on her head and she moves the plum from hand to hand, feeling its weight.

He will never have to wear a scarf. They are so lucky.

think that you should. It would be good if you did. And it is wajib on you now, you know. It would be a sin not to. But. It is your decision.”

And their sister, Amira Ali, who was perhaps the only child in their entire community known by her full name. No one needed any other marker to distinguish her. She was already herself, even as a child. He knew he was referred to as Rafiq’s boy, and when he was younger the community members would add, that naughty one.

“Abbas?” Amar asks, and Baba nods, and next to him Amar hears Hadia make a small animal sound. He leans against his doorframe. Then somehow he is sitting, somehow his hands are flat against the rough carpet. His father is saying, I am sorry. But he’s alive? Amar thinks he asks, but his father doesn’t reply and anyway, he already knows. His first absolutely stupid thought is to wonder who he will sit next to at mosque now. And just as the possibility of loss begins to open up beneath him, he thinks of Amira. Her note is hidden in the side pocket of his History notebook. He has hesitated from tucking it into his keepsake box because then his box would become not where he stored his own journals, but where he hid that one reminder of her. He has composed a dozen letters to her in the four days since receiving it, but has discarded them all. He feels a sudden urge to be beside her, and he is surprised by his thoughts—by the way they pull him in her direction.

“I want to see Amira,” she insists, expressing the very thought that had become a beat in Amar’s mind. Their father, worn out by the news, does not have the energy to deny her.

Now there would never be another walk to the corner and back, a moment as simple as looking at him and then the sky. Abbas was young, Hadia’s age. Amar is afraid he will throw up, or worse, cry, so he tries not to think of the way Abbas gave him a reason to be excited about being a member of their community. 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.

At school Amar was valued for the very qualities that were looked down upon in his house. There he was not disrespectful but funny. There it was good that he was interested in English class, in the poems and stories his teachers assigned. As far as he was aware, none of his school friends knew what it was like to come home to a house that was quiet the way his was, where everything was forbidden to them—loud music or talking back, wearing shirts with band logos printed on them. A father who yelled, a mother who looked out the window or spent the day praying and tending her garden. A family that wanted him to change who he was, to become a respectable man who obeyed his father’s every word, and followed every command given by his father’s God. Or what it was like to live with the knowledge that his father would disown him if he found something as harmless as a packet of cigarettes under his mattress. To not have that kind of love. To not even believe in it.

But Abbas knew these things. They would leave the mosque to walk in the parking lot, talking about what Amar could never voice to anyone else, the streetlights reflected in the murky puddles, and Amar confessing he did want to believe in God, in his father’s God, and he was afraid to lose that desire. Abbas touching his shoulder to stop him from stepping into a dee...

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. And now Amar pulls the seat belt away from him because it feels too tight, he bites on his knuckle, afraid to think of who he has lost. ...

He is hit with the strange sensation that Seema Aunty has comforted him before, that he has felt safe in this very room, and he is not sure if it is from a memory or a dream.

The look on her face unsettles him, a vacancy to her expression that makes him want to shake her. He turns away and follows his father into the men’s section.

The Ali house is grand and beautiful, and Amar knows every corridor. All that playing hide-and-seek in the dark, even now he could close his eyes and find his way.

is a risk to walk upstairs, an even greater risk to walk straight down the hall to her bedroom and knock on her door, and perhaps there would be nothing more shameful for the two of them than if they were caught, speaking alone in an empty bedroom. But this is his life. This is exactly what he wants to do with it. He

Then the door opens. Just enough to reveal her face, then a little more. This—that she opened the door wider upon seeing his face—feels like an accomplishment.

He feels guilty for his quickening heartbeat, guilty for how aware he is that they are alone. She steps back from the door, giving him a space to enter, and he does.

He wondered, on the drive, how they would address what had happened. And now he sees it is as easy as saying “knew” instead of “know.”

mistake to bring it up. “Out of everyone, I was hoping you would come,” she says. She might be the bravest person he has ever met, saying what she thinks and feels without fear or hesitation.

Abbas gone and never coming back. Her voice is so sad it makes him want to touch her, it seems wholly unbelievable that they are not allowed to touch one another, that he cannot even offer an embrace to comfort her. How could something so simple, for the sake of solace in a time like this, be a sin?

moving planes make their way across the tarmac, she feels a strengthening in her aloneness, a comfort in knowing she can rely on herself.

It is also comforting to realize her self un-witnessed is in harmony with her self seen. That she discreetly does the minimal wudhu in the bathroom, seeks out a room in the airport where she can pray. That despite the fact that no one would know if she skipped her prayers and slept as she wanted to, she unfolds a napkin on the floor, sets down a small sajdagah, and prays. And as she lifts her cupped hands in prayer, she recalls Amar’s question from months ago, do you pray for yourself and God or do you pray because you’re told to? And before she dismisses the thought, she thinks now she could answer Amar with honesty: I pray for myself, and for God, who is my witness.

them in the house alone for more than a few hours, her girls never cooked the meals she made but experiments they pulled from cookbooks, and Amar fought with them often, which always angered Rafiq—and perhaps her biggest worry of all was that she could not trust Amar and Rafiq to be left in the same room alone for too long.

How would she present herself, what would she say? Sometimes when in public she was so shy others assumed she did not speak English, and they would ask Rafiq or Hadia to ask her something, and she would feel deeply embarrassed, too embarrassed to respond fluently in English as she knew how to.