If they misbehaved I only had to glare at them. In some instances, a voice raised, a flick to their lip, the twisting of their ear. So little it took to make them obey. Once they were done crying after a punishment, they would not become cold but would wonder how to make it better. Hadia would tilt her head and speak in a voice both mature and innocent, waiting for a sign of my approval, of forgiveness. Huda would rub her head against my arm like a cat until I hugged her. And here was another thing I took for granted in those years: their ability to continue on as though nothing had happened.
You were something else. You did not let your mother sleep, did you know that? Hadia and Huda had also cried, had also woken at odd hours. But your screams came from somewhere else—not motivated by hunger or discomfort, I would think when I tried to comfort you, and that thought unsettled me. I was worn out by your screaming, or maybe it was my inability to console you, and so I would hand you to Layla. She would take you from our bedroom so I could sleep, speak to you in Urdu using a name she had begun calling you: “What is it, Ami, what’s happened?”
Motherhood had been becoming on Layla. She was so young when Hadia was born. She devoted her time and attention to her daughters as if it were her choice—keeping something of herself for herself, inhabiting the role with strength and sweetness, ease and command. Hadia and Huda came to her when they needed her, busied themselves alone or with each other when they did not. But with you, motherhood became a more consuming endeavor. As you grew she became prone to anxiety and stress. While you slept she examined your bruises.
“Look,” she would say, pointing to a purple mark on your thigh. “How do you think he managed to hurt himself here?”
I wonder now if she had intuited what I could not, or what I refused to: that it would not be easy for us when it came to you. Though you did not know it, you had divided the attention of our home. If Hadia and Huda were on one side, you were on the other, and Layla was turned to you. Your sisters were resilient; little denials and little losses and lectures did not alter the course of their day. You were stubborn with your sadness. You would enter it and not leave. And instead of softening, I hardened in my approach.
* * *
MOST MORNINGS, I was in charge of dropping Hadia and Huda off at school. Before I left I would look back at you, kicking your legs as you lay on your stomach to color, and wonder what you and your mother did all day with the rest of us gone. My daughters always wanted more from me. One more story, Baba. Two more minutes, Baba. They tiptoed and turned their cheeks toward me so I could kiss them. At the park they asked me to push them on swings or climbed on me like monkeys. You did not ask for any of these things. I did not know if it was indifference or a desire for independence that kept you from me.
But every few months, before you turned five, you and I had a day alone together. I would come home to find your mother had taken it upon herself to cut your hair again. The sight of you with a jagged and uneven haircut never failed to irritate me. Maybe it felt like a game to you both. Your mother lifting you up to the bathroom countertop, wrapping a towel around your neck to catch dark tufts of your hair. Layla, I would tell her, trying to control my annoyance, why do you always do this, make him look silly like this?
The following Sunday we would go together to get a haircut. When I watch Hadia and Tariq interact with their kids now, it seems strange to me that those were some of the only times we were alone. Hadia and Tariq are such different parents. In some instances they upset me greatly, letting Abbas go off into the neighborhood alone, without knowing exactly who he will be playing with. But in other ways they are getting right what we did not even think to consider. They take their children on “dates”: sometimes Hadia takes Abbas and Tariq takes Tahira, and sometimes the other way around.
“We are the way we are as a family. It’s special for them and nice for us to see what we can be, one-on-one,” Hadia explained once, when I asked her why.
You always went with your mother everywhere. When she stood up to go to the grocery store, you rose to accompany her. If she was not present, you were Hadia’s shadow. If I stood to leave for an errand, if Hadia or Huda did not offer to come, I went alone. I worried about you growing up in a house full of women, looking only to them for an example. I feared you would not know how to be, how to behave, that I was doing nothing to teach you.
“Come,” I’d say, “let’s go fix your hair.”
The glance you gave your mother was not lost on me. The only thing worse was how she would nod to you in return, as if giving you permission to go, to trust me. I would lift you into my arms, which I never really got used to. Yes, I held my children when they were babies, but often when Layla’s arms were occupied, or if she needed a break, and I would try to entertain you all the simplest way I knew how, I would take you outside and point to the sky. Look, stars. Look, moon. But when I held you and we made our way to the car, I remember you would put your head on my shoulder as if you were tired, I remember you would scratch the thread of my top button until we reached the car. And I remember wondering if my own father had ever held me, and now, when I think back, I do not think he ever did.
I risked buckling you into the front seat. I wanted you to think something special was happening. I wanted you to look out the window and feel yourself at the edge of the world as you approached it. I drove slowly. I looked out for cop cars. I looked over at you from time to time, your back straight, your hand gripping the tan seat belt, your face turned to look out the window. I tried to make conversation. Talking to anyone has always been a bit strange for me, talking to a child no less unnerving. I spoke to you as though you were already an adult. How was your week? I would ask. We would glide down the street that was my favorite in our city, one long line that curved up and down with the hills, thick trees lining both sides—the only street that ever made me feel like it was fall in California, because driving by rows and rows of trees made it apparent that the leaves were changing color. You were short with your replies. Shy, as though I were a stranger. Were we lost, even then at that early age, you three and a half years old and so quiet? I tried to not feel disappointed. I searched for things to speak of. That is a post office, I said, when we passed one, do you know what happens at a post office? You shrugged a single shoulder, as though I bored you.
At the barbershop, I would unlock the car door and you would hop out. Our barber’s name was Jim. He was a nice man who recognized us, his loyal customers, and he would take one look at your mess of a haircut and say, again? He and I would laugh about it. It was like a joke between us. I would lift you into the raised seat, smaller than the rest, and Jim would wrap a black cloth around your neck that swallowed your whole body. When he approached you with scissors you would look back at me in the mirror. I never stepped away. I wondered if Jim thought that you and I were close, that I did things with you often, or if he could sense how wary we were of one another.