“What’s happening?” I swallow thickly. “Is it Mama? Don’t tell me it’s nothing,” I interrupt when she moves to say something. “Don’t you dare gaslight me.”
“Okay.” She holds her hands up. “I have news. It’s not bad; I promise.”
I loosen for a fraction, but my muscles hurt from how much I’m tensing them.
Amal takes a deep breath before placing a palm onto her stomach. “I’m pregnant.”
I gawk at her, and my guard shatters. “Oh my God!” I gasp.
I stand, rushing to hug her. She wraps me tightly in her arms, and I’m half on her lap as a fierce nostalgia sweeps through me, remembering when Mama used to hug me like this. Amal inherited her hugs, and I wish she’d hug me like this every day.
When we break apart, Amal’s eyes are misty, and I feel my own become watery as well.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be a mom.” Amal laughs shakily.
“You’ll beamazing.” True happiness creeps through the emptiness. And this time, it stays. I’ll be an aunt. I wonder what this babywill inherit from me, from Amal, from Mama, from Baba. From our ancestors that we don’t know. “Did you tell Baba?”
She nods. “I went to the gas station last week and told him. He was happy. Well, as happy as Baba can be.”
I glare at her. “You knew for so long?”
“I wanted to tell you in person,” she protests. “And you were busy with school. Ergo, the yabra’a is an apology.”
I sigh. “Okay. You’re forgiven.”
She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I don’t know why I’m crying.” She hiccups.
“I’ll get you tissues.” I skip toward the kitchen. “Your hormones are all over the place.”
“I was thinking of Mama too,” she says from the living room, and I pause, my palms becoming sweaty. “I was thinking how the baby will never know her.”
I stare at the box of tissues and don’t move.
“And I’m thinking, how will I tell the baby about her?” Amal continues, her voice wavering. “I’m thinking how she was pregnant with us; she must have talked to us all the time. And I know I was in her stomach, and I don’t remember any of it, but I hate that I don’t. I hate we had time with her we don’t remember. It’s so stupid. But I hate it. And every day, I’ll forget one thing about her, and I don’t know how much I’ll remember when the baby is old enough to understand it had a grandmother who died.”
My throat feels too raw.
“Our family was so small to begin with,” Amal says, and I think it’s easier for the both of us to listen and talk when we can’t see each other. “We don’t even keep in contact with our relatives in Syria because they’re strangers to us. Sometimes…I wish Mama and Baba never left Syria. I don’t know if we would have been worse off, but at least we’d have a family. Maybe what happened wouldn’t have happened. Maybe Mama would still be alive.”
I lean my head against the wall in her kitchen, closing my eyes. “If we stayed in Syria, you wouldn’t have met Marwan.”
She blubbers out a laugh. “No, he would have found me there.”
I open my eyes, staring at the salt and pepper shakers.
“Do… do you think about that?” Amal asks in a quiet voice.
“Yeah,” I croak. “All the time.”
“But then I feel guilty because we’ve been given so much. We’re not suffering because of what’s happening in Syria. I just didn’t think it had to be a choice like this. Staying and suffering or leaving and being in gh’erbe.”
Gh’erbe, I think.
No word in English comes close to the true meaning of the word in Arabic. The root word of it meaning “to withdraw.” From it comes many words with the same meaning. The sunset. The absence of light. At its essence, it’s being a stranger in a strange country. A country that doesn’t feel the way home should feel. Strange in your skin that doesn’t fit along your muscles. It’s a never-ending ache every person away from their homeland feels for the rest of their lives. As Muslims, we always knew that word would become a part of us.
“It’s not fair,” she says. “But this life isn’t forever.”
