Chapter Eleven
THE HOSPITAL NURSERY always smelled faintly like powder and possibility. It was too bright, too soft, too everything—and I loved it.
Sarah and I stood shoulder to shoulder, noses pressed against the glass, coffee cups in hand, eyes scanning the rows of bundled-up new lives.
“That one,” she said, tapping the window. “The one with the full head of hair and the death glare. Future CEO. Probably of a pharmaceutical company. The kind that swears they’re ethical, but you just know they’re not.”
I squinted at the baby in question. “You mean the one who looks like he’s already planning a hostile takeover of the nursery?”
“Exactly.” She grinned, taking a triumphant sip of her coffee. “Born ruthless.”
“Fine,” I said, scanning the row. “Then that one—tiny, bald, and currently drooling on himself—will become an artist. The tortured kind. He’ll live in a loft filled with half-finished canvases and emotional support plants.”
“You’re projecting again.”
“Shut up.”
She snickered, pointing to another baby wrapped in a pink blanket. “Okay, go again.”
I tilted my head, studying her. “That one’s easy. Future prime minister. But she’ll quit politics to open a bakery because she realized the world didn’t deserve her kindness.”
Sarah made a thoughtful noise. “A feminist icon who bakes bread. I like it.”
We went on like that for a while—an engineer who’d forget their own birthday, a future Olympic swimmer who’d have a deep-seated fear of puddles, a girl destined to start a cult but only because she was really persuasive and had great hair.
Then, somewhere between the cult leader and the kid with perfect eyebrows, she said, “You know, when I was born, my mom wanted me to be a pediatrician.”
“Really?”
She nodded, smiling faintly at the memory. “Yeah. She had this whole thing planned—how I’d have my own little practice, how she’d decorate my office. She even bought me a toy stethoscope when I was five.”
“And now you’re in public health,” I said, but something in my chest tightened.
“Yup.” Sarah shrugged. “When I told her, she didn’t even blink. Just said, ‘as long as you’re happy, I’m proud.’”
Her voice was light, but the words landed like a bruise, because my mother never even wanted a daughter.
And then when I came anyway, she wanted a mirror.
A reflection that smiled prettily and said all the right things.
The only future she ever pictured for me was the one where I got married and moved out—tidy, acceptable, easy to explain at brunch.
She didn’t care what I did, only that it looked good on paper.
When I became a doctor, it wasn’t pride that softened her voice—it was disappointment.
Her interest in my work existed only in the retelling, not the living of it.
I could save a life, deliver a baby, hold the trembling hand of a woman on the brink of loss, and all she’d care about was how it sounded at her next dinner party.
Sarah’s mom baked her cookies; mine baked expectations I could never rise to.
I imagined her standing exactly where I stood now, thirty-two years ago, staring down at a newborn girl wrapped in hospital linen, wondering not who I’d become, but whether she could slip out of the room and come back with a baby boy instead.
I forced a smile, hoping it didn’t crack. “That’s nice.”
“What about your mom? What did she want you to be?”
I laughed—short and sharp. “Nonexistent.”
Her face fell. “Lilly...”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly, eyes darting back to the glass, to the rows of babies who still had blank slates and open futures. “She got what she wanted, in the end. I became a doctor. I’m sure she’s thrilled.”
Sarah bumped her shoulder against mine. “You’re allowed to want things for yourself, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.”
But I didn’t. Not really.
The silence that followed was thick—too heavy for a nursery full of pastel walls and fresh starts. So I cleared my throat, grasping for something brighter. “You didn’t tell me,” I said, turning to her, “how was your date?”
Her groan filled the room, loud enough to make one of the babies stir.
“Disastrous. I’m talking full-scale, red-flag parade.
He spent the entire dinner lecturing me about how a ‘proper wife’ should delete her social media and be home before Maghrib.
Then he asked if I’d be willing to ‘start wearing darker colors’ so I wouldn’t compel other men to look at me. ”
“Wow. Romantic.”
“Oh, it gets better,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He also brought his mother to the date. She spent twenty minutes explaining why she’d make the perfect mother-in-law.”
I winced. “So he’s one of those.”
“One of those,” she confirmed, looking down at one of the newborns, tiny and impossibly still. “And then came the inevitable question: ‘You’re going to wear the hijab before we get married, right?’”
My jaw tightened.
“At least he waited until the end of the date,” she went on, her voice small now. “Most of them leave as soon as they see me.”
Something hot and ugly flared in my chest because the only thing worse than men were those men—red-pilled, self-righteous, cloaked in false piety. The ones who thought being born male gave them divine authority to comment on every molecule of a Muslim woman’s existence.
If you didn’t wear hijab, it was “When are you going to wear it? You know it’s mandatory, right?
You know you’re going to hell, right?” And when you finally did wear it, suddenly it was, “Your hair’s showing, your neck’s showing, is that your ear?
I can guess the shape of your body through your clothes.
Your shirt should be longer, looser, heavier.
Wait—why are you wearing pants? You should only wear skirts, dresses, abayas.
Is that mascara? Blush? Foundation? Why is your face even showing?
You should be a niqabi.” And then, the classic encore uttered with the smug conviction of someone who thought modesty was a competition: “If you’re not going to wear it properly, then just take it off, take it off, take it off. ”
It was exhausting, disgusting, a bastardization of everything Islam ever meant. Because hijab was supposed to be beautiful, a reclamation of dignity, not a weapon to wield against women. But somewhere along the way, they’d turned it into one.
And yet, out of all Khalifa’s infuriating qualities—and there were plenty—I was fortunate enough to say that, despite being a thirty-six-year-old fob, he’d never once commented on how I dressed.
Not that I dressed immodestly, but there was always room for improvement.
Living in the West made it hard to fight the nagging, subtle urge to let a tight top slide, to loosen my hijab just a little more each day.
But I always tried my best. And he never made me feel bad for leaving the house with makeup on, never looked at me like I was somehow less of a Muslim for existing in the middle ground between expectation and self-expression.
It was a simple kind of respect. The kind you didn’t notice until you realized how many men didn’t offer it.
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” I said finally. “Men suck. But you’ll find your naseeb.”
“I just want to be in love, you know? Not the ‘delete your personality for the sake of modesty’ kind, but the real kind. Like you and Khalifa.”
My smile faltered. Khalifa had his moments—soundless, fleeting gestures of kindness.
But then there were the silences, the walls he built so high I couldn’t see over them, no matter how far I stretched.
He never talked about his family, or his childhood, or what kept him up at night.
Living with him felt like sharing a house with a stranger.
One that was sort of a nice guy disguised as an ass who locked the door to his world the second I tried to step inside.
He did sweet things the way people breathed—quietly, accidentally, without fanfare or the faintest hint that he expected anything back.
It wasn’t just that he didn’t look for gratitude; it was like he preferred the emptiness that followed.
Like he’d grown accustomed to the rhythm of giving, giving, giving.
..and then the familiar absence that trailed behind it.
Like he’d spent his whole life believing there was nothing to return.
For a while, I’d chalked it up to emotional illiteracy, convinced he simply couldn’t handle a thank-you without combusting.
But now I was starting to wonder if it wasn’t incapability so much as unfamiliarity.
Maybe he didn’t stiffen at appreciation because he rejected it—maybe he stiffened because no one had ever handed it to him before, not in a way that felt real.
There was always this split-second pause, a flicker of startled recognition, before he smoothed it over with practiced indifference. As if he couldn’t quite process the idea that someone might notice him, value him, choose him, and actually want him to know it.
“Yeah,” I told her. “Lucky me.”
But somewhere deep inside, guilt pricked me again—because she was still waiting for love while I was pretending to already have it.
WHEN I GOT HOME THAT night, I did what I always did—shed my day like a second skin.
My shoes went flying somewhere near the entryway, my bag landed on the console table with a thud, and my keys skittered across the floor like they were trying to escape me.
The loft smelled faintly of garlic and cumin—Khalifa cooking again—and I was halfway to sighing in relief when I froze.
There were people sitting in my living room.
“Mama?” My voice came out small, almost childish. “Baba? What are you guys doing here?”
My mother’s eyes swept over the mess I’d just made—the shoes, the bag, the trail of exhaustion I’d left behind—and her expression didn’t shift, but something about the silence made me feel twelve again.
“I—uh,” I stammered, scrambling to pick everything up. “Sorry. Long day.”
“We wanted to visit our daughter,” she said finally, her tone cool. “Is that a crime?”
Her words stung. She hadn’t spoken to me since the wedding; the messages I’d sent had sat on delivered, gathering dust in the digital void. But still, I smiled. Because that’s what I did.
“Of course not. I missed you.” I bent down and kissed both their heads before sitting across from them.
My mother’s gaze flicked toward the kitchen, where the sound of a pan sizzling filled the air. “You’re going to sit and leave your husband in the kitchen?”
I turned to see Khalifa at the stove. He didn’t look up, but I could tell he’d heard her.
“I just wanted to catch up,” I said, half-rising from the couch, unsure of myself. “But, um, yeah. I’ll help.”
Khalifa glanced over his shoulder. “It’s fine, Lillian. Sit with your parents.”
The way he said my name—polite and unbothered—should’ve made it easier. But I could feel my mother’s disapproving stare boring into the side of my face, could almost hear the lecture forming in her mind.
I hesitated, caught between two lives that didn’t quite fit, two expectations I could never fully meet, before standing. “No, it’s okay. I’ll help.” I headed to the kitchen and stood beside him, muttering, “A warning would’ve been nice.”
He didn’t look up from the cutting board. “They got here five seconds before you did.”
I let out a low groan and started opening random drawers, pretending to look busy. A spoon clattered across the counter, followed by the sound of me nearly knocking over the salt shaker.
“You’re making a mess.”
“She’s watching me,” I hissed, sneaking a peek toward the living room where my mother sat, perfectly composed, probably judging the way I breathed. “Give me something to do.”
He sighed, like this was all somehow my fault, and handed me a bowl filled with vegetables. “Wash these.”
“Fine.” I took it, but my trembling hands betrayed me. The bowl slipped through my fingers, hit the counter, then the floor. Tomatoes and cucumbers scattered everywhere, rolling beneath the cabinets.
For a moment, there was only the soft hum of the stove. Then I felt his eyes on me, slightly annoyed, maybe even surprised.
I bent to pick up the bowl, but before I could, he was there—close enough that the air seemed to thicken around us as his arm grazed my bare wrist. I could smell him—soap and something earthy, like rain and spice—and it made my thoughts tangle.
My pulse stuttered, then sped up, the sound of it prickling my ears with static.
When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “It’s just a dinner,” he murmured, his breath warm in my hair. “And then she’ll leave. And everything will be fine.”
It wasn’t fine. Not the way he said it, not with how close he was, or how every word vibrated through me. My breath hitched, and I nodded—too quickly, too desperate to prove I was composed—though the quiver in my body gave me away.
He kneeled, his shoulder brushing mine as he reached for the vegetables.
The distance between us was electrically paper-thin.
He turned the faucet on and, without a word, took my hands, guiding them beneath the stream.
The contact sent a flicker of something through me that had no business being there.
For a few seconds, I let him ground me, let myself imagine what it might feel like if we weren’t pretending.
The water was cold, but his skin was warm—so warm it made my chest tighten. The sound of running water filled the silence, too loud, too intimate. His breath was on my neck, in my ear, the faintest exhale when he leaned closer, his tone low enough to make my spine go rigid.
“Breathe,” he said.
But I forgot how, my heart hammering hard against my ribs, the periphery of the moment blurring until it was just his hand over mine, the soft drag of his thumb across my skin, and the terrifying thought that maybe I didn’t want to move.
Then, like a sudden recoil, reality slammed back. I jerked away, my hands slipping free from his. “I know how to wash vegetables,” I snapped.
He nodded curtly, turning away from the sink, eyes fixed on the cutting board.
And I stood there, the water still running, my hand squeezing the tomato so tight it burst, trying to convince myself that the heat in my face was just from the stove.