I turned my head, still lying on the floor, and watched Fatima exchange a look with Khadija. Watched them both look at Zahara, who had her arm thrown over her face, her chest heaving with sobs she was trying to muffle.
“She is not intact,” Khadija finally said. “She has been… used.”
Baba made a sound. Low and guttural, somewhere between a growl and a groan. Like the news physically pained him. Like Zahara’s lost virginity was a wound inflicted onhimrather than a private matter that was none of his goddamn business. But with her virginity lost, he couldn’t sell her off. And with me being seen with a street nigga, I couldn’t be sold either. Our father had promised us to men at his mosque. That was now ruined.
He crossed the bathroom in three strides and stood over Zahara, looking down at her naked lower half with an expression of pure revulsion.
“Cover yourself,” he spat. “I cannot stand to look at you.”
Zahara scrambled for her clothes, her hands shaking so badly she could barely pull her underwear back on. I was moving too, yanking my jeans up, desperate to be covered, to be hidden, to have some small barrier between my body and my father’s judgment.
“Whore.” The word left his mouth like a curse. “I raised a whore under my own roof. Fed her. Clothed her. Gave her everything. And this is how she repays me.”
“Baba, I’m sorry—” Zahara started.
“SORRY?” He grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She cried out in pain, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “You spread your legs for some street hoodlum and you think SORRY is sufficient?”
He dragged her toward the door, and I scrambled after them, my jeans still unbuttoned, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might explode.
“Baba, please, it was my fault too—” I tried to grab his arm, tried to make him let her go. “I knew about it. I helped her sneak out. Punish me, not just her?—”
He released Zahara just long enough to backhand me across the face. I hit the bathroom wall hard, my head cracking against the tile, stars exploding across my vision.
“You will both be punished,” he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Believe me. You will both be punished.”
He shoved us out of the bathroom and into the hallway, where the rest of the family still waited. All those eyes on us—our stepmothers, our half-siblings, everyone who lived under this roof and followed this man’s rules without question.
They all saw us stumble out. Saw the tears and the terror and the red marks already forming on our skin.
None of them moved to help.
The beating that followed was the worst of our lives.
Baba used his belt. Then his fists. Then a wooden spoon from the kitchen when he needed something with more reach. He beat Zahara until she stopped screaming, until she could only curl into a ball on the floor and whimper. And when I tried to intervene—throwing myself over her body, begging him to stop—he beat me too. For defending her. For being her accomplice.For being born with the same face as a daughter who had brought shame upon his household.
The other wives watched in silence. The other children watched in silence. Mehar was crying, I remember. Little twelve-year-old Mehar with tears streaming down her face, her hand over her mouth to muffle her sobs.
Nobody helped us.
Nobody stopped him.
When it was finally over—when Baba’s arm got tired, when his rage burned down to embers—he stood over us, breathing hard, and delivered his final verdict.
“Get out.”
I looked up at him through swollen eyes. “What?”
“Get out of my house.” He stepped back, disgust curling his lip. “Both of you. I have no daughters who behave like whores. No daughters who sneak around with kafir men. No daughters who bring shame upon their family.”
“Baba, please—” Zahara’s voice was barely a whisper. She was bleeding from a cut above her eyebrow, and I was pretty sure at least one of her ribs was cracked. “Please, we have nowhere to go?—”
“That is not my concern.” He turned his back on us. On his own flesh and blood. “You have five minutes to leave. Take nothing but the clothes on your backs. If you’re not gone by the time I return, I’ll drag you out.”
He walked away from us into his office.
The door closed with a click that echoed through the silent house.
Kim helped us to our feet. Pressed two hundred dollars into my hand—probably all the cash she had—and whispered, “Go to the shelter on North Avenue. They’ll take you in.”
