Unlike me, Shayda was eager to get married.
She’d fought with my mom over this, insisting it was something she wanted. She’d already picked out the guy, had accepted his hand, had a five-year plan. Shayda was nineteen, in her second year at the junior college, but she was going to transfer to a local university soon, and she wanted to be engaged for the next couple of years. Her plan was to get married just after graduation. She did not want to have children, not ever. She just wanted the husband.
This plan struck most non-Muslim people as either stupid or bizarre, but within many religious communities, it wasn’t uncommon. A lot of people got married relatively young, or at least got engaged young. They’d get engaged for a couple of years, spend time together with the express purpose of marriage, then get married. There were happy and unhappy couples. Divorce was not taboo; we had plenty of that, too. Which—not for the first time—made me wonder about my own parents.
A single knock on my bedroom door was my only warning before Shayda barged into my room, looking overheated.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” And then, taking a long look at me: “Why are your eyes all red and puffy?”
I startled, glanced in the mirror. “Oh,” I said. “Allergies?”
“You don’t have allergies.”
“Maybe I do.” I tried to laugh. “Is it really bad?”
“Whatever, I don’t care,” she said, distracted. “Just get dressed, please. I can’t go down there without you.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because,” she said. She narrowed her eyes, pinwheeled her arms like I should understand.
I did not.
And then she shook her head, shook her head like she was talking to an idiot. “I don’t want to look too eager, okay? I’m trying to be—” She waved her hand around, searching for the right word.
“Nonchalant?”
“What? Why can’t you talk like a normal person?”
“I do talk like a nor—”
“God, I don’t care, okay?” She cut me off. “I don’t care. How do I look?”
I took a deep breath and thought of my mother, my mother, my mother. And then, carefully, I processed the scene in front of me.
Shayda was wearing a dress—long and frilly and glittery—with a shiny hijab to match. She looked nice, but extremely overdressed, a truth I wasn’t sure I should impart. I didn’t know how to tell her that it didn’t matter how many people accompanied her as she descended the stairs; her outfit screamed the truth.
She looked too eager.
“You look really nice,” I said instead.
She rolled her eyes and shot me a look so scathing it scared me a little. “Forget it, I’ll go without you.”
She was already at the door, turning the handle, when I said:
“What is your problem?” I could no longer keep the anger out of my voice. “I just told you that you look really nice. Why is that a bad thing?”
“I said forget it, Shadi. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I was stupid to even ask you to care.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think it means?” She spun back without warning. “It means you don’t care. It means you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.”
I stepped back like I’d been struck.
“That’s not true,” I said, but I was stunned, which made me sound uncertain, which only proved her point.
She laughed, but the sound was hollow, angry. “You don’t care about anything. Not about us, not about Baba. You never talk to Maman, you never ask me anything about my life.”
“I didn’t know you wanted me to ask—I didn’t even know you wanted to talk to me—”
Her eyes went wide. “Shadi, you’re my sister. Who else am I supposed to talk to?”
I took a step forward and she drew suddenly back, her face flushing.
“Don’t you dare try to hug me. Don’t you dare try to patronize me.”
“I’m not trying to patronize you, I just—”
“You have no idea how hard it’s been for me this last year,” she said, her eyes shining with sudden emotion. “You have no idea, Shadi.” She shook her head, looked around. “Who do you think keeps the house running these days? Who do you think makes sure we have food in the fridge? Who do you think takes out the trash, cleans the kitchen, brings in the mail, sorts the bills, makes sure Maman has gas in her car, cashes her checks, makes sure Baba’s insurance is going through?”
“Shayda—”
“Me, Shadi.” She stabbed a finger at her chest. “It’s me. And you don’t lift a finger to help. You don’t even pretend to give a shit. You have no idea what I’ve been going through or how much I have to do every day or even this”—she waved her hands around—“this, today, with Hassan.” She laughed, suddenly, sounded hysterical. “You don’t even know what’s happening, do you? You’ve never asked me a single question about him. You know literally nothing about my life, and you couldn’t care less.”
“Of course I care. Shayda, I want to know—please, listen to me—”
“No—I’m sick of how selfish you’ve been. I’m sick and tired of it. You’re out doing God-knows-what with Ali, of all people, who treats the rest of us like shit, who hasn’t even talked to us in like a year—and you never, ever want to know how Baba is doing. You never visit him at the hospital. You don’t even care about him. You want him to die. Don’t you? Don’t you?”
She was just screaming at me now, her painted lips curving around the awful sounds. I’d frozen in place, my compassion turning to dust as I imagined my mother sitting downstairs, pretending not to hear some distorted version of this in front of her guest. I was picturing her mortification, her horror.
“Please,” I said quietly. “Please stop shouting.”
She would not.
“You want our family to fall apart. You want our parents to
