Chapter One
My husband died on a cold summer night.
Later, when I discovered the truth, and the haze of shock and disbelief melted away, I wished he were alive so I could kill him.
I found out my husband was dead via one of those middle-of-the-night phone calls that is always bad news. It came through on the landline, a number that no one, except for telemarketers and the pharmacy, ever used. They initially tried to reach me on my mobile, but only Ali and the kids got through when I silenced my phone.
I was in too much of a sleep stupor to process what was happening. The stranger’s voice vibrated into my head, somehow both intimately close and yet coming from a distance, hurtling into my ear.
“Is this Mrs. Abadi?”
“Yes?” My voice was muffled, creaky with sleep. I didn’t bother to correct the routine mispronunciation of my last name. He pronounced it “a body” rather than the correct “a baddie.”
“Do you live at 1620 Merry Pines Circle? Are you married to Mr. Ali Abadi?”
I shifted in bed, growing more alert. Why were they asking about Ali? Why did they have our address? “Who is this?” I asked sharply.
I tried to remember where my husband was. My mind went blank at first. Then it came to me. He had a business thing with the local TV station where he worked as an occasional contributor. Dinner with sponsors. It was supposed to run late.
“Ma’am,” the voice in my ear said, “I’m Officer John Wheaton with the county police department. We are outside your front door. We tried knocking and ringing the doorbell, but no one answered.”
I awkwardly pushed myself into a sitting position. “You’re where?”
“At your house. We didn’t want to alarm you by banging on the door.”
I hadn’t heard anything. The fan that I ran in my bedroom every night took care of that. Which was usually the point. I couldn’t sleep with my college kids, home for summer break, tramping up and down the stairs at all hours, closing doors, and talking too loudly. Long gone were the days when I could force them to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.
I stumbled out of bed, almost tripping on the corner of the sheet that caught my foot. I threw on the first thing I saw. The baggy T-shirt and elastic-waistband shorts I’d worn the day before. My usual uninspired work-from-home uniform. A whiff of body odor hit me when I tugged the cotton top over my head.
I stopped myself from turning on the upstairs hall light. I didn’t want to wake the kids. By then, it registered that something was wrong. I gripped the banister when I reached the stairs, and somehow managed to get to the front door without pitching, face-first, down to the landing.
I fumbled around for the key and finally turned it into the lock. I was surprised by the shock of cool air that blasted over me when I managed to fling the door open. It was late July, when the days were hot and muggy in Virginia, even in the middle of the night. But it was like nature had adjusted the temperature to meet the moment.
The uniformed officer stood on the doorstep, his face contorted into a mask of practiced sympathy, as if he’d done this too many times before.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but there’s been an accident.”
Chapter Two
Before
“Yalla, come on, Amira!” Mama poked her head into my bedroom, trying to hurry me. “They’re going to be here soon.”
“I’m almost ready.” I made a show of taking my time, slowly pulling the brush through my long dark hair, which was blow-dried flawlessly straight. At twenty-one, I wouldn’t be caught dead acting excited about meeting a guy with husband potential. I was a soon-to-be professional woman with a college degree.
But the knot in my stomach told a different story. I was nervous. A marital prospect had apparently seen me at my second cousin’s wedding a couple of weeks earlier. His mother had called my mother, and now he and his family were coming to meet us. It wasn’t my first meet and greet, but the encounters had accelerated lately. This was my third time meeting a potential husband since graduating from college a couple of months before.
“I don’t know how you stand it.” My younger sister, Lulu, lounged on my bed, examining her split ends. “It’s like you’re a horse up for market. Next thing you know, he’ll be checking your teeth.”
“The way I choose to view it is thatheis on display formeto accept or reject,” I told her, very pleased with my liberated-woman outlook. “It’s all in how you see things.”
But I was feeling the pressure. Most girls my age in our local Palestinian community were already married or at least engaged. I’d finished college. Marriage was the next step. At least according to my parents. Being a spinster made you an object of pity, and I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. Besides, I wasn’t the type of girl who rocked the boat.
The doorbell rang. Lulu and I looked at each other. She popped up from the bed.
“Your stallion awaits!” she said, pushing me toward the bedroom door.
The first thing I noticed about Ali Abadi was his height. He was tall. And he had nice eyes. Kind eyes. Framed by dark lashes so lush that they almost looked fake.
