Mother Country (Good Intentions collection) by Etaf Rum

Author:Etaf Rum [Rum, Etaf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2023-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

8.

My mother-in-law was over for dinner when I told her the news: I was continuing for my master’s in literature. Considering the speed in which I’d completed my undergraduate courses, I could finish in a year. Easy as pie. Not only because I desperately needed a distraction from myself, but also because books had become my closest friends. Tucked inside their pages was the only time I truly felt safe.

My mother-in-law shook her head and pointed out that I did not need another degree. I was tight lipped, trying to remain calm as I fed my daughter spoonfuls of yellow rice. My husband wouldn’t look at me, his attention on the football game playing on the television in the next room. You should be at home focusing on your child, she continued, dipping her pita in hummus, extra lemony like my grandmother taught me.

What about my dreams? I asked her, my heart beating too fast.

You’re a mother, she told me. What could be more important than that?

I excused myself to the bathroom, locked the door, sat on the toilet, and pressed my face into both hands.

Lucky you, was all you said when I told you about the master’s.

By the time the semester started, my mother-in-law was pleased to find out I was expecting again. Naseeb, she said to me. Divine timing.

That’s not going to stop me, I replied.

Inshallah it’s a boy, people said.

Let’s hope they’re right, you said again. For your sake.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a girl, I told you, defiant, but deep down I was terrified of what would happen if it was. Would I spend my youth like you had, pushing out one child after the next until I bore a son?

Luckily, the books helped take my mind off it.

The days felt long, but at least I was doing something to better myself. An education was one thing you didn’t have, a clear separation between us. The power of a single thought.

Some days I looked down at my hands as if they belonged to someone else. Other days it felt like I was floating above my body and watching myself on the ground. A speck of dust on the scale of the universe. Insignificant.

I blinked, it seemed, and nine months had passed.

You came to visit me this time. You sat very close to me in the hospital room, the floral smell of your perfume taking me back to that dark house, those years in Palestine. I cried and cried, the tears pouring out of me.

What’s wrong? you asked.

Nothing, nothing, I said. But later, before you left, I told you I was afraid.

Of what? you said.

Failing like you was what I didn’t say.

Walad, my mother-in-law said, her eyes bright like fireworks. Alf Mabrouk.

His eyes were dark, and there was a pleasant, sweet, slightly tangy scent radiating from his skin. The most delightful fragrance.

I remember the first time I left the house alone with them. My daughter sat inside the grocery cart. My son was fast asleep, wrapped in a tight burrito.

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