CHAPTER 11

ADELE WINCED AS ANOTHER DOCTOR pressed the rod hard into her swollen belly. She closed her eyes to the monitor across from her, didn’t want to see the tumour growing in her womb. A few minutes later, he stopped probing and put the stick back beside the ultrasound machine. He turned to the technician. “She has a large mass and it’ll have to be taken out. And she has several cysts generally associated with endometriosis. That explains all her pain. She doesn’t have any kids?” The doctor didn’t make eye contact with Adele.

“No,” the technician replied. “She’s just eighteen and unmarried.”

“Unfortunately, these things happen.” He finally faced Adele who lay still on the table, the gel chilly on her skin. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he said in a monotone voice, “You’ll need a hysterectomy. The tumour is the size of a grapefruit. It has taken over most of your uterus, which is usually the size of a pear. Yours is abnormally large because of the mass, and the shape suggests it may be cancerous, so it’s best to remove the whole womb. You won’t be able to have children, though.” Tall and stooping, he still didn’t make eye contact with her even though she tried to meet his gaze. “Your options are limited. A lot of women have hysterectomies. Very routine and safe. Nothing to worry about. If I were in your position, I’d be thankful to get rid of the pain and heavy bleeding. One advantage is that you’ll never have another menstrual cycle.” She wanted to scream, But I can’t have any children if I don’t have a period!

Instead her quiet, serious gaze flitted from the doctor’s face to the woman technician’s. The technician gave her a small smile and added, “Just think of all the money you’ll save too. You’ll never have to buy another box of tampons or pads.” Adele nodded politely as rage swarmed in her stomach. She backed down, glancing at the picture on the monitor.

“We’ll make a follow-up appointment for you at the Obstetrics and Gynecology department so they can meet with you for a pre-op,” the doctor said. He scribbled something on a pad then handed the sheet to Adele. “For the time being, here’s a prescription to help with the pain. Use a heating pad to relieve the discomfort. Unfortunately, we don’t have any beds available at the moment so I’m sending you home, but if you feel you are getting worse, come back to the emergency right away.”

After, Adele was left alone in the dark with the image of her womb. She raised herself off the examination table and wiped the remaining gel from her belly with a towel the ultrasound technician handed her before leaving. The black and white glare of the screen, showing the incomprehensible photograph of her womb, cast an eerie glow in the dark space. Suddenly the technician whipped back in to turn on the light then handed Adele some painkillers and a cup filled with lukewarm water. Adele swallowed two pills with some difficulty then placed the cup on a side table while she dressed, keeping her head down the entire time while the technician cleaned the ultrasound rod before she finally left the room.

Alone once more, Adele crossed the room, and peered through the sliver of the drawn curtains. A half-crescent moon shimmered in the distant sky. Hours had passed since she had first entered the hospital. But the pain in her abdomen hadn’t subsided; her pelvis throbbed. For a while, she stood in front of the window and stared into the vast sky. How unthinkable that her young body couldn’t carry a baby. She had always wanted children, but today she learned she wouldn’t have any. A wave of panic engulfed her and she sank into a chair. Her arms tightened around her chest. Her relatives had often said that a woman who couldn’t bear children was only half a woman. The purpose of a Lebanese woman’s life was to marry, bear children, raise them and take care of a husband, they had concluded at many family gatherings. Half a woman. Adele looked down at her body. She wasn’t broken. She had all her limbs, all the parts that encompassed being female. Though numb at this moment, she could still move, walk, dance. She wasn’t broken. She looked perfectly normal, only pale and worn from this entire ordeal. She pressed her arms closer to her chest, wanting to suffocate the pain shooting up from her belly to her throat. Something shrivelled within her when she replayed her relatives’ words. She closed her eyes. Five minutes later, she opened them and made her way out of the room and into the foyer. As she walked down the hallway, she spotted her father standing by the entranceway, his hands stuck in his pockets, his greyish-black hair ruffled.

A shadow overtook his face when he saw her. He didn’t smile or wave; he stood with his eyes narrowed, his lips pressed together. He didn’t open his mouth and greet her as she limped past the sliding doors and stood in front of him. Adele’s eyes darted between her father’s severe face and the darkness outside. Removing his hands from his pockets, Youssef led her outside into the brisk air towards the parking lot. Silence engulfed them while Adele followed her father, trying to keep up with his fast pace though the pain in her belly prevented her from doing so. She stared through tears at the back of his old coat.

Youssef slung his coat over the back of the couch in the living room.

“So what’s wrong?” Samira asked almost immediately when Adele walked into the house, trailing behind her father. Samira had closed the store a few hours earlier. Adele’s stride was unsteady. Her shoulders slouched.

Her father pushed past her mother, nearly making Samira fall down. Adele was too weak to argue and stand up to him for acting roughly with her mother. Instead, she sat on the stairs leading to the upstairs bent over in agony, the painkillers she was given at the hospital fading. She peered up at her father, but he didn’t look at her while he tramped across the room. He flung himself hard on the sofa, making its springs creak like an old house. He didn’t look at her once. Rising from the steps, Adele unbuttoned her coat, hung it up in the closet by the front door then sat back on the stairs, her arms wrapped around her stomach.

Samira looked at her then turned to Youssef, raising her eyebrows in question. But he didn’t answer her. Then she knelt in front of her daughter, resting her hands on Adele’s knees. “What did the doctor say?” she asked in Arabic. Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

“I can’t have children,” Adele said in an equally inaudible tone. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, afraid that more words would make her cry.

Samira got up from the floor and stared across at Youssef again. “What does she mean?” Sadness overtook her. Her voice broke.

“What are you? Fucking deaf? You heard her,” he snapped.

Adele looked up at her mother’s face; it had turned as red as a poppy. She wanted to defend her, shout back at her father but she couldn’t. She felt depleted, completely empty. The tears began to stream down her face. Finally, she let the deep-throated sobs fill her entire body. Her shoulders rose up and down.

“But why? Why can’t she have children?” Samira almost shrieked, horrified with this possibility.

“She’s defective. Her female part isn’t good. It needs to be taken out. That’s why she’s in so much pain.”

“But…” Samira paused, her gaze flitting between Youssef and Adele. “She can’t have children?”

“Are you fucking dumb?” Youssef shouted. “Why can’t you understand? It’s not complicated. She’s defective. Not a whole woman.”

“How will she get married now?” Samira asked in a loud voice. Another low sob escaped Adele but her mother paid no attention. Samira was still looking to Youssef for an answer.

“No man would want her anyway,” Youssef muttered. He finally raised his head and looked across at Adele, his deep-set eyes glaring in disappointment. “She let the doctor break her. She’s no longer a virgin.”

Samira raised her hands to her mouth and said in an exasperated voice, “Oh, Adele. Why did you do that? Why did you let the doctor touch you down there?”

Adele dragged a sleeve across her eyes. She took in a deep breath and stopped crying. After a few moments, she replied, “I had no other choice, Mama. I’m in so much pain. I had to find out what’s wrong with me.”

“But couldn’t the doctor do something else?” Samira folded her arms across her chest. Her eyes darkened.

“No, the doctor said…”

Samira sighed. “What doctors want to do, they do.”

“What are you saying, Samira? You think it’s all right that Adele let the doctor touch her down there?” Youssef said.

“No, I don’t think it’s right but I know how some doctors can be. You remember when they removed my womb. Don’t you remember that, Youssef? They didn’t give me a choice.”

Youssef interrupted, raising his index finger. “No, wait. This is different.”

“No, it isn’t,” Samira said. Adele glanced at her mother and lifted her mouth in a small smile. For once, Samira was standing up for her.

“Canadian doctors don’t understand our culture, our ways,” Youssef grunted. “You’re not clean now, Adele,” he added harshly. “What good Lebanese man will marry you if you’re not a virgin?”

“That’s old-fashioned thinking. Thinking from the village. We don’t live in a village, Babba. This is Canada not Lebanon. Nobody cares if you’re a virgin or not.”

Suddenly, Youssef lifted his arms above his head then flung them back and forth, grasping onto his temples. He began to shout. Adele jumped. “Allah, why did you give me such a stupid daughter? Nobody cares if you’re virgin! Lebanese men care. You think they want a dirty woman to be their wife, to bear their children? Do you think they want that?” He cast his eyes at Adele.

Adele whispered, “I can’t have children, remember? I won’t be able to give them any.”

And at this comment, Youssef stopped and stood silently. He glared across at Samira. Then as if remembering her place, Samira roughly rubbed Adele’s face, wiping the tears and asked, “How could you let the doctor touch you? Wasn’t I a good mother? Didn’t I teach you to remain clean until marriage? Your sisters listened to me. Why are you so stubborn? How could you disobey me, your Babba?” She turned and looked at Youssef again, who sat with his hands dangling between his open legs. Then she faced Adele again. “How could you?” she said, her voice dropping.

“I had no other choice, Mama.” She felt her mother’s hands slipping away from her cheeks. Through the tears, she looked at her mother as she joined Youssef on the sofa.

“I don’t know you at all,” Samira said, sitting next to Youssef, shaking her head.

Adele rose from the steps. She stared at her mother. “You’re just figuring that out?” Then she stumbled up the stairs.

A week later, Adele had a hysterectomy. When Adele awoke from the surgery, she lifted the covers off from her body and stared hard at the large white gauze on her abdomen. She had a scar in the exact same spot as her mother. Now they were inseparable. Samira stood beside Adele’s hospital bed and gazed at Adele’s belly. Adele could hear tears catch in her mother’s throat. Samira gently stared at her and whispered, “You’ll be all right, habibti. We’ll get through this together.” After all, Samira couldn’t bear any more children and Adele would never have any of her own, would never know the joy and chaos of carrying a child in her belly. Now more than ever, Adele was a second-class citizen. She turned her eyes from her stomach and fixed her gaze on the snow that fell from the sky. Tomorrow was Christmas day. The gift of barrenness was hers. She watched the snow as the wind blew it around in a playful way while the evergreen trees caught the snowflakes in their needles.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, habibti,” Samira murmured. Then she tenderly kissed Adele on the forehead and sat in the chair next to Youssef. Adele lifted her head and looked across at her father. The hospital room looked bare with only two chairs and another bed, which was empty, fresh linen perfectly tucked under the corners of the mattress. There was a vase of flowers on the bedside table and Adele could smell their scent. Yellow roses were her favourite. They looked beautiful in this sterile space. She turned from the silky petals and stared at her parents. They were now both slumped on the chairs opposite her bed, eyes dull and worry lines engraving their skin. Their frowns made Adele think of all the times she had failed as the good Lebanese daughter. And now all of a sudden she felt relief that she no longer had to follow tradition. In the past week, she had done the unthinkable: she had allowed a doctor to break her hymen, then a surgeon to take out her womanhood. She looked away from her parents and directed her gaze to her sisters. They stood quietly in the room. Their faces were withdrawn, the colour drained from their cheeks. Rima hadn’t even broken into a smile, something she was known to do in the most sombre of situations. She was always smiling and talking. But she remained silent now. Words seemed pointless at this time, Adele thought, sighing. Her sisters were all married and had children of their own. They married young and had children right away. What could they possibly say at this moment to make things better?

The next morning, Adele opened her eyes to the sound of her father’s voice in her hospital room, but she quickly squeezed them shut and pretended to sleep. She heard her father say in a muffled tone, speaking Arabic, “You can’t ever mention this operation to anyone. This is our secret. If an outsider finds out about her problem, then no one will marry her. Make sure you tell your husbands to keep their big mouths shut too. There’s no need for anyone to know about this. It’s ayb, disgraceful, a virgin having this type of surgery. But this is what Allah wanted, so be it.” Adele heard the sound of palms rubbing together. She then shifted her legs. “Shh,” Youssef said, “she’s waking up. Remember what I said, not a word, you understand? Not a damn word.”

Adele opened her eyes. She stared at her parents and sisters, her gaze fluttering between them.

“Good morning, habibti,” Samira said, rising from her seat. She stood next to Adele’s bed and bent down to plant a kiss on her forehead but Adele turned her head the other way.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me!” she hissed under her breath, now clenching her fists. Her arms rested straight by her sides.

“Adele, please don’t be mad,” Samira said, tears filming her eyes.

“Come on, Monkey,” Rima coaxed, now standing beside the bed. She put her arm around Samira’s waist. “Don’t be like that. We know you’re going through a hard time but things will get better. We’re family. We’ll get through this together.”

Adele pursed her lips. “Yeah, that’s coming from someone who has children.” Her vision blurred with tears and her voice cracked, “I’ve disgraced the family like Babba said.” She looked at her sisters, then at her mother. They all turned and faced Youssef who sat in the chair with his eyes directed at the window. “I heard every damn word. I can’t have children, but I’m not deaf!” Adele twisted her head towards the wall. The room was suddenly quiet. Her mother and Rima pulled away and Adele continued to stare hard at the white wall. After a few minutes, all she could hear were the dwindling footsteps of her family on the linoleum floor. She closed her eyes again and tried to fall asleep.

A few hours later, Adele awoke to the sound of a baby crying. She blinked her eyes before she realized that a new patient had been placed in the room with her. Adele glanced at the woman, guiding the infant in her arms to her chest. Her gown was opened wide, revealing her breasts and the baby, his dark head slightly bobbing back and forth. Small gulping noises filled the room. Adele couldn’t help but stare at the woman and her newborn. When the baby grasped at his mother’s breasts, Adele studied the young woman gazing tenderly down at her child as if they were the only two people in the room.

The new mother looked up and smiled. Adele tried to meet her eyes but she couldn’t. She quickly looked down at her body. Loathing it, she squirmed under the covers. The other woman frowned, then smiled again as she stared down at her son. Adele moved her legs, ran her hands over the bed sheets, frantically searched for the rod to call the nurse. Once she found it, she pressed the button over and over until a nurse came running into the room. The nurse was a middle-aged woman with short brown hair, bangs slicked away from her weary face. She was new, someone Adele had not seen before during her stay in the hospital. “Are you all right?” she asked in a hoarse voice. She stood beside Adele’s bed, rested her hand on her arm. Adele didn’t respond but lifted her chin in the direction of the mother and child. The nurse shook her head, not understanding. “What’s the matter, dear?”

Adele remained silent, a vacant look on her face. Walking to the foot of the bed, the nurse picked up the clipboard that listed Adele’s condition. She gently put the clipboard back, letting it dangle from its chain. Then she quickly grabbed the curtain, slid it around the steel rod until Adele was enclosed like a caterpillar in its cocoon. The nurse stood beside Adele’s bed, touched her arm again and asked, “Is that better?”

Adele nodded her head and then closed her eyes before the tears slipped out.

A few hours later, she felt someone gently tugging at the waistband of her pajamas. It was a young nurse, who exposed Adele’s belly and removed the bloody gauze covering it. Adele stared at the foot of her bed while the nurse’s fingers brushed against her stomach, efficiently replacing the soiled bandage with a fresh one. She briefly looked up at the nurse’s face; she had the youthful look of someone barely past the age of twenty-five with her red hair pulled back in a ponytail and her face free from make-up. When her eyes met Adele’s gaze, her pale lips widened into a grin but Adele quickly twisted away. But the nurse continued to beam as she said, “It’s a beautiful day today. I hate winter but when the sun’s shining, it’s almost bearable. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Adele mumbled. She clenched her fists and stared at the wall while the nurse finished tending to the incision. The nurse’s fingers gently pressed clear tape over the gauze. After she was done, she patted Adele’s hand and said, “Everything will be okay. You know that, right?”

She pulled her hand away and faced the nurse. She squinted angrily. What the hell did this woman know? She wasn’t the one suffering, wasn’t the barren one, the defective woman but more importantly, Adele thought, she wasn’t the Lebanese woman who had failed miserably. She looked hard at the nurse’s red hair and freckled skin. She inhabited the white world, not ancient scriptures and Corinthian columns. Adele said nothing.

The nurse smiled sympathetically, gathering her supplies and placing them in a bag. She walked to the door and stood in the threshold, looking back at Adele. “Take care. Remember the pain is only temporary. It’ll go away. You’ll see. Everything will work out.”

“Thank you,” Adele said reluctantly, thinking, you have no idea.

After five days, Adele was sent home to continue recuperating. It was better to be in her sunny bedroom, under her own comforter, but her belly still throbbed from the centre of her pelvis to the right side of her ribs in a steady, dull beat. Over the past few weeks, her skin had turned pale but the sun tinted it now as if she had a faint tan, only she hadn’t vacationed somewhere warm, hadn’t left the confines of her bedroom since her discharge from the hospital. The sunlight grew bright. Adele lifted her hands again to protect her eyes. After the surgery, she had insisted the curtains be closed. She didn’t want the sun to touch her, warm her “defective” body. But on this particular day, she wanted to feel connected to the outside world so she had allowed her mother to open the curtains. She imagined her womb floating in a jar of formaldehyde under the glaring lights of a sterile lab. She imagined the doctor’s gloved hands holding the diseased uterus; its grapefruit-sized tumour sliding out with one quick slice from the thin blade held between the physician’s fingers. Golden-orange rays flickered on the walls, and on her withdrawn face. A squirrel was perched on the branch of a tree with its claws holding a crumb of bread to its mouth, nibbling at a speedy rate. Adele smiled. She hadn’t smiled since she had learned that she’d never be able to carry a child of her own. Suddenly, she turned away from the window and lifted the covers off her body. She stared at her belly then listened to the cars driving down the street of her neighbourhood, the wheels treading on snow-covered pavement. The maple trees stood naked in the cold, their branches swaying in the mid-morning wind, the heavy, wet snow bending them like weeping willows. She pulled the covers up over her stomach once more. She looked out the window and thought again of the nurse’s naïve promise.

The nurse was wrong. Everything did not work out. Adele slid into a deep depression, refusing to get out of bed, not even sitting up until her mother forced her to. “Come on,” Samira said, bending down and wrapping her arms around Adele’s upper body. She lifted her and pulled her out of the bed, then slung Adele’s arm over her shoulders. Samira dragged her to the bathroom. There, she stripped off Adele’s pajamas and placed her on the toilet seat while she squeezed a warm, wet cloth over the sink. She bent slightly to wipe Adele’s body, moving the wash cloth down her neck, around her collarbone, then between her breasts. Adele rested her back against the cold tank of the toilet, tilted her head and stared up at the ceiling. For one brief moment she lowered her head and looked at her mother’s hands as they glided the cloth over her naked protruding hipbones. She looked down at her emaciated body, barely able to raise her arms to wipe the tears that now poured out of her mother’s eyes, down her sunken cheeks.

Though the daily bath was routine, the tears were new. On other occasions, there had been muscles straining in her mother’s neck, around her mouth when she asked Adele if she was still in pain, whether her gentle sponge baths were too much to endure. Pretending they didn’t hurt, Adele had let her mother continue the regime. But this morning, Adele began to shake uncontrollably until her mother gripped her by the shoulders, steadying her. After a while, the quivering stopped and Samira began the task of cleaning the incision. Adele rolled her head to the side but her eyes caught glimpses of the sutures on the lower part of her abdomen. The once smooth, taut skin was now blemished, imperfect. Samira’s dark eyes flitted over the carefully stitched flesh. A redness encompassed Samira’s cheeks and Adele could tell that her mother suddenly felt at fault for her predicament. On most of these mornings, when her mother bathed her, Adele had avoided her mother’s eyes, but now she met her gaze. Pity and disappointment shone there, like the time Adele had refused to continue going to the Arabic school.

She had failed in so many ways at being the good Lebanese daughter. She wasn’t like other Lebanese girls.

Her mother’s fingers traced the scar as if memorizing its length, its contrasting colour on Adele’s olive skin, the meaning it held in seven inches of space. Adele flinched, pressing her spine on the toilet tank. Her mother continued to whimper. She suddenly said, “May I ask you something, Mama?” Eyes still pasted on the ceiling.

“What is it, habibti?” Samira replied softly, clearing her throat.

“Do you think I’m half a woman, that I’m worthless?” she asked, swallowing hard.

Samira shook her head and opened her mouth, but no words came out. She then fell forward, rested her forehead on Adele’s shoulders. A warm, wet sensation slid down Adele’s chest, back. Adele lifted her right arm with difficulty and patted her mother’s head. “It’s okay, Mama,” she whispered over and over.

From the corner of her eye, Adele watched her mother stand up straight and drop her hands into the basin. She squeezed the cloth, turning the water pink. Adele noticed the way her mother’s arched, finely-sculpted eyebrows came together, how they put pressure on her eyelids, how sad she looked with her hands submerged in the dirty water. Adele quickly wrapped a towel around her body. She shivered while the steam of the bath transformed into drops of condensation, sliding down the mauve walls.

When she returned to her bed, the walls of her bedroom were still bright with the sun. Her mother tucked her in, pulling the covers close to her neck. Samira sat on the edge of the mattress and uncapped a small plastic bottle. She lifted the container and dabbed a few drops of liquid on her fingertips, then she dropped them on Adele’s forehead. A few years ago when visiting a large outdoor Cathedral on the outskirts of Montreal, and being a devout believer in God, Samira had filled this tiny container with holy water. Adele looked at the bottle and remembered her mother’s journey up the steep steps. Despite her bad knees, Samira had trudged up the cobblestone leading to the alcove where a statue of the Virgin Mary was surrounded by a fountain of sparkling water. Once on top, Samira had leaned back against the grey slabs of concrete, regaining her breath before entering the shrine. It was rumoured that the water from this holy place could heal those with ailments. Adele had stood at the bottom, watching her mother as she rested at the entranceway. Adele had wished she had joined her mother instead of watching her bend alone, scooping the blessed water in the bottle. Getting up from her knees, Samira had wiped her dress, tightened the lid on the container, and stuffed it in her purse. Before leaving, she stood once more at the threshold and stared at the statue of the Virgin Mary.

Now Adele studied her mother’s unsmiling face while she anointed Adele’s forehead with the holy water she had collected from Montreal. Adele thought her mother looked old; the skin around her eyes was swollen and her cheeks were beginning to droop. She felt her mother’s fingers drawing the sign of the cross on her forehead. Normally, she would’ve pushed her mother’s hand away while performing such religious rituals, but this time she lay still and let her mother’s faith rub into her flesh. What harm could it do? she thought. She closed her eyes and allowed her mother to anoint her. The infertility had killed something inside her. Maybe this “holy water” would awaken her as Jesus had done for Jarius’ daughter. Adele stirred from her mother’s warm breath on her cheek, then she felt her lips on her face, softly kissing her. The mattress suddenly shifted and Adele heard the creaking of the floor. She fell into a deep sleep.

When she awoke, she heard the approaching footsteps of someone, making his or her way up the stairs and into her bedroom. Adele lifted her head from the pillow and glanced at Mona slowly walking across the room, balancing a tray laden with soup and crackers. She carefully placed the tray on the nightstand next to Adele’s bed. Then, she put her arms around Adele’s upper body and helped her sit up. Adele struggled with her sister, refusing to cooperate. “Stop fighting me, Adele,” Mona insisted, blowing strands of long, black hair from her eyes. “You need to sit up and eat.” After a few moments, Adele succumbed to her sister’s ministrations and let her arrange the pillows behind her back. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mona held the bowl in her left hand, and then stirred the spoon in the soup with her right hand before lifting it to Adele’s mouth. Adele rested her head against the wall, turning her face away from her sister. She refused to open her mouth.

“Come on, Monkey,” Mona coaxed, playfully nudging Adele’s thigh. “I’m not that bad of a cook.” She held the spoon in the air.

“Fuck off!” Adele retaliated, bowing her head so her chin touched her chest while Mona moved the spoon towards her mouth.

Mona persisted. “Come on. Please, pretty please. Do you want me to beg?”

“Leave me alone! I don’t want to eat.”

“You have to. How are you going to get well if you don’t eat?”

“Who wants to get well? I’m defective, remember?” Adele raised her eyes and stared directly into her sister’s tear-filmed eyes.

She quickly looked down at the bowl in her hand. “Babba didn’t mean what he said.”

“Yeah, right.”

She looked up at Adele once more, the lines around her eyes softening. “You have to forgive him. He’s from the old country. He doesn’t know any better. He has that old country mentality. He wasn’t born and raised here like us.” She held the spoon against Adele’s closed lips again. Still refusing to cooperate, the broth slid down her chin. Mona sighed and gave up. She put the bowl back on the tray and grabbed a napkin to wipe Adele’s face. She then held her hands, gave them a squeeze and smiled. “Do you remember the time I gave you a fat lip?”

Adele turned her head from her sister.

“I will always remember that fight,” Mona laughed softly. “I think it was the last physical fight we had. Remember?”

Adele kept her eyes cast down.

“I remember you wouldn’t leave me alone. You were always following me, always trying to invade my space. I was sixteen and I didn’t want my little sister tagging along with me and then one day you overhead my conversation with Hassan. Do you remember him?”

Adele said nothing.

“Anyway, I was secretly dating him because I knew Babba would never approve of our relationship. He wasn’t Christian, wasn’t Orthodox. He wasn’t even Lebanese.”

“He was Iranian,” Adele finally said.

“Yeah, that’s right. Good memory. Well, when I heard your breathing on the other end of the phone, I freaked out, afraid of my secret getting out. You know how Babba was.”

“Was?”

“Is, is,” Mona corrected, laughing again. “After I hung up the phone, I chased you around the house until I caught you. You were shouting ‘I’m gonna tell Babba on you!’ Luckily, he was in the store working so he didn’t hear you and Mama was outside. I then pinned you on the floor….”

“You were always a better fighter than me.”

“I was also bigger, older. I shouldn’t have let my quick temper get the best of me.” She continued. “I pinned you on the floor between my legs. You struggled to get free. Then you grabbed my hair and pulled really hard.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Adele said, tugging on her lower lip, trying not to break into a smile.

“You know how I am with my hair.”

“Who are you kidding? Your entire appearance. You can be so superficial, Mona,” Adele quipped.

Tossing her long, straight hair over her shoulder, Mona replied, “I can’t help it that I got all the good looks in the family.” Adele stared at her sister’s high cheek-boned face that was perfectly covered with makeup, not one blemish visible. She was beautiful, Adele thought. Adele knew that Mona’s exotic features and thin body, dressed in miniskirts and form-fitting blouses, attracted the attention of many men. When they walked down the street together, it was always Mona who got the leers and whistles. Adele was too conservative with her blazer and trousers, glasses that made her look like the serious and studious bookworm that she was.

Mona continued with her story. “After you pulled my hair, I slapped you across the face but you moved your head…” she hesitated, touching the gold bangle on her right wrist. “I ended up hitting you in the mouth with my bangle. I felt so bad when you started to cry. But I really thought you were faking it. You can sometimes be so dramatic, you know.”

Adele smiled. “That’s my privilege being the youngest in the family. I’m allowed to be a whiner.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Mona said, flicking her hand. “You ended up running into the bathroom and slamming the door shut. When you didn’t come out, I began to worry. I knocked on the door but you wouldn’t open it. You can be so stubborn.”

“It’s the Aries in me,” Adele explained.

“That explains why you and Babba always clash. Two rams in one family, always butting heads. Anyway, you finally opened the door and I saw your mouth. Your upper lip was as swollen as a balloon.”

“And you were really worried about getting in trouble for hurting me.”

“Yeah, you’re the baby after all.”

“I’m not a baby anymore,” Adele interjected.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Monkey, but you’ll always be the ‘baby’ no matter how old you are. When you’re fifty, you’ll still be the baby.”

“Really?” she said, sarcastically. “And you’ll always be the wicked sister who abused her helpless little sister,” she said in a taunting tone. Then the sisters began to laugh.

When they stopped, Mona softly brushed the hair away from Adele’s face. “It’s good to see you smile again.”

Adele asked in a low voice. “Do you think Babba is right?”

“What do you mean?”

“That a Lebanese man will never marry me?”

“I don’t know. There must be some that are more liberal than the ones we know. Anyway, who needs a Lebanese man, there are plenty of good Canadian men.”

“What will Babba say?”

“Do you really care what he thinks?”

“You all did. You all married Lebanese men.”

“That’s us, Adele. We’re different from you, you know that. You’ve always felt that way. You’re the smart one.”

“I’m not that smart.”

“And modest. My dear, dear Monkey, you know what?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” Mona lightly rested her hands on Adele’s, then she picked up the bowl of soup and guided the spoon into Adele’s open, willing mouth.

The next morning, Adele awoke with a sense of calm. She stretched her arms over her head and turned to look at her desk. A small, flat package wrapped in gold paper sat in the middle of it. Slowly, she raised herself and moved her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked down at her body, lifted up her pajamas, and let her fingers trace the cotton bandage. After covering her belly again, she carefully pushed herself up, hands pressed deep into the mattress. She held onto the edge of the bed and dresser for support as she made her way to the desk. Holding the gift in her hands, she read the small card attached to it: For Adele, whose beautiful spirit inspires me. Love, Mona. Adele smiled. She slowly unwrapped the gift. It was a burgundy journal filled with mulberry paper. Pulling the drawer open, she grabbed a pencil and took slow steps back to her bed.

She sat up as she opened the journal, her fingers rubbing against the bumpy texture. Resting her back against the pillows, she looked out the window, taking quick glances up and down, as she began to sketch the clouds and sun in the immense sky. In the quiet of that morning and after her postoperative care, when others were at school or work, she let lines as tender as berries drip onto the paper. After a while, she let the journal drop beside her. Out the window, the heavy snow had slowed down to flyaway snowflakes. The questions in her mind were like the snow, swirling around. Would her future lover be sympathetic to her inability to conceive? Would her first time be similar to the experience of a woman with a womb or would it be as hollow as she felt at this moment? She was only eighteen, hadn’t yet experienced that intense first love, nor lovemaking. She didn’t know if a potential lover would still desire her—a woman without the organ that sustained life.

Suddenly exhausted by the weight of these thoughts, she slid down the pillows, buried her body under the covers and fell deeply asleep.