First Comes Marriage

by Huda Al-Marashi

  I covered my face with my hands and groaned just imagining the rumors. Newly married couples in our community were minor celebrities. People watched the bride to see how she was holding up, they watched the couple and tried to guess if they were happy with each other, and, most importantly, they waited for news of their first baby. When I came home on break, people regularly asked me if I was expecting, and when I said no, they always asked why. To my stock answer of “It's in God's hands,” an aunty once asked me, “Are you using something or not?” I could hear the rumors that would start after tonight, that I'd asked Hadi to stand next to me and he didn't, that our relationship was in trouble and that was why Hadi and I didn't have a baby yet.

  “You've got me thinking that we're just too messed up to be having kids,” I said.

  Hadi took my hands off my face and pulled me next to him on the bed. “You don't have to take it to such an extreme. I just saw you over there, and I felt like you didn't make any effort to be with me. It's always me who has to come over to you.”

  “Really, Hadi? I know I'm difficult about a lot of things, but you're difficult too. Look how much you read into that moment. I was just sitting there because that's where I was sitting.”

  Hadi put his arm around me. This was one aspect of our lives that was less complicated in Mexico because we only had each other. There were no sides to retreat to where we could complain about our problems. Maybe we would have had more issues as a couple if we'd stayed here, negotiating our lives around our two families.

  “You could have come over to me,” I said into the curve of his shoulder where my head now rested. “You could've said something, invited me to come be with you. Anything but just standing there, leaving me hanging.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I'm sorry.”

  “Tell me, how come when I think things are better between us, they're not? When will our problems really be fixed?”

  It shook me to think that I'd made the decision to stay with Hadi and start a family, but that my renewed commitment had done so little to spare us conflict.

  “I don't know what you mean by ‘fixed.’ I think we're fine. People argue and get over it, and it doesn't have to mean anything.”

  The possibility of an argument not having to mean anything about us as a couple had never occurred to me. I analyzed every conversation and fight we had, but I did not question my mind's constant dissection of our daily lives.

  That night, in spite of the late hour, it took me a while to fall asleep, my thoughts more troubled than angry. I hadn't realized that I'd replaced one ideal with another. I'd believed that accepting my marriage came with its own version of a happily ever after, a place where all our arguments were a thing of the past, where all our problems as a couple were resolved. I wondered how many other fictions of love still lurked in the corners of my mind. How liberating it would be to finally let them go.

  Guadalajara was the only place I'd ever lived where it was colder inside during the winter than it was outside. A chill clung to the mud walls and tile floors, but this nippy breeze didn't prevent life from carrying on as usual at the internado. The girls still showered and dressed in stalls with curtains that billowed in the wind. They still combed their wet hair in the courtyard. And I still got off the bus in a T-shirt, only to throw on a sweater after I arrived, to brave the draft.

  By April, the cold gave way to warmth. At the orphanage, the girls and I now sat without sweaters, toasty but nowhere near hot. I was making progress not just with the girls’ lessons, but I also had finally found the courage to talk to Viviana about trying out different discipline methods. I still was not pregnant, but I was far too distracted to be concerned. Hadi had come home from school the week before and called me to the door, his tone as excited as if he had a dozen roses hidden behind his back. He told me he'd been given permission to do his last year of medical school at the General Hospital in Tijuana. We could move back to San Diego as soon as classes were over in June. In the fall, he'd commute across the border, and I could finally start taking classes again. There wouldn't be enough time for me to start a PhD program before he had to apply for his residency, but maybe I could squeeze in a master's.

  I'd listened to him with too-good-to-be-true skepticism. After three years of dealing with the university's inconsistent policies, I didn't believe this was any more likely to be happening now than when Hadi told me he was going to try to apply for it three months ago. But Hadi was not the type to get excited about anything before it was a sure thing, and he responded to my doubt with insistence. “This is happening. I'm not the only one going. Two other guys are doing it too.” He dropped his backpack to the floor and added, “You can start packing and selling our stuff tomorrow if you want.”

  “I'm having a hard time believing you.”

  “I know.”

  I stared at him for a second. “If this is true, I have to see if I can still apply to programs.”

  “You should.”

  I nodded thoughtfully, doubtfully.

  Hadi took my hands in his. “Just think. No more going to the grocery store to pay our bills at the register. No more disappearing electricity. No more roaches. No more diarrhea.”

  Hadi was finally rescuing me, and the pride that lifted his voice was something new and endearing. He deserved to know he had made me happy. I believed this. I felt this, but when I opened my mouth, I said, “And no more niñas.”

  I wanted the next thing out of my mouth to be, “We can't go. Let's just stay here for your last year so I can be with the girls,” but I couldn't say it.

  To my surprise, Hadi offered it. “We could stay if you wanted.”

  Hadi loved San Diego. He pined for its coastal highways and ocean views. It bothered me that given the chance to go home, Hadi was still so eager to please me that he couldn't see through the game I was playing with myself—this pretending I didn't want to go so I wouldn't have to admit how much I did. I released Hadi's hands after a gentle squeeze and said, “No, we should go.”

  In the weeks that followed, everything that was once so intolerable became precious. Oh, you funny old bus driver you, passing me up on the street. Oh, you grouchy guy at the bank who never smiles at me when I change money. Oh, medical school that wanted a photocopy of Hadi's grade school report cards and junior high school diploma, you I will not miss, but to you I am most grateful. Thank you for giving my husband this opportunity, and for now finding me a way to go home, and yes, thank you for inviting us to your end-of-the-year dance. Even though your formal parties have always struck me as a bit sophomoric, now we'd be delighted to attend to say goodbye.

  The evening of the dance, Hadi and I went out to dinner with a few other couples before heading out to the university campus. As we took the steps up to the hall, I noted how formally dressed the Mexican students were. The women wore long cocktail dresses, and the men wore pressed suits. It reminded me of my prom, with my ostentatious custom-made dress and Hadi's rented tux.

  Now Hadi wore black slacks and a white button-up shirt with no tie. I wore a fitted top with a shiny skirt and open-toed heels. My hair was not stacked up on top of my head as it had been at my prom, but blow-dried straight and resting on my shoulders. We were a far cry from any “Lady in Red” fantasy, and this was a relief to me, a point of pride even. We'd finally grown up.

  As we walked in through the double doors, the pulsing Latin music blaring from the loudspeakers enveloped us. I spotted a Puerto Rican couple from Hadi's class, on the dance floor. The boyfriend spun his girlfriend around, and they laughed before resting their foreheads together. I felt a tug on my heart. They were so beautiful, their movements perfectly synchronous, but how foolish had I been to think Hadi and I could have danced like them, as if the magic of being young and newlyweds had the power to transform us from two children who'd grown up in households where dancing in public was practically forbidden into people whose bones had rhythm.

  We settled in with our group at a table off to the side
of the dance floor. Waiters came around with beers and with shots of Tequila. Hadi and I were the only ones at our table who did not reach for a drink. As our friends sipped, I tried to resume our conversation as if nothing had changed, but I felt uneasy. I always felt uneasy around alcohol.

  A group of the wives got up to dance. “Come with us,” my closest friend among them, Danette, said.

  I was about to say no when Hadi said, “Go.”

  I looked at him and asked, “Really?”

  “Just go.”

  I followed Danette onto the dance floor, but as soon as my feet landed on the waxy, wooden floor, they felt heavy, as awkward and as cumbersome as they would have felt in combat boots. Danette and the women with her formed a circle and started to clap and sway, but my legs wouldn't budge. I felt too exposed. After all this time dreaming about dancing, it finally dawned on me that I didn't want to dance in public spaces as much as I wanted to blame Hadi for not allowing it.

  I whispered an excuse to Danette and returned to our table.

  “You're back so soon?” Hadi asked.

  I shrugged. “I felt silly.”

  He put an arm around me, and I felt cozy and secure, like I did during our quiet dinners together when we ate at the coffee table and watched movies on the couch. Now I understood what a good feeling that was.

  “Let's go,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said, knowing that soon we'd be home to our same couch and our same television, but that tonight would be different.

  I spent a week preparing for my last day at the internado. I wrote a letter to each girl, telling her how much I cared about her, everything I hoped for her future. I made cupcakes and goody bags filled with candies and small toys.

  On that day, each group had class at its scheduled time. While the rest of the group was busy inside with cupcakes and coloring, I called out the girls one by one to take a seat at one of the two patio chairs I'd set up outside the door. There, I gave each girl a goody bag and read her letter to her. Some of the girls blushed with pride, smiled, and gave me a tight hug. Some cried on my shoulder. And then there was Daniela. It would be too simple to say that she cried. When I started to tell her what a sweet and wonderful girl she was, how proud I was of all the progress she'd made, and how certain I was that she would succeed, her face lit up, and then it fell. She rested her head in her hands and sobbed, her shoulders bobbing up and down. I pulled her into my lap and told her I meant everything I wrote, that she was very special and that I would always remember and love her. And then she looked up at me and said, “Ay, Joya, who will love us like you?”

  The urge to stand up and say, “That's it. I've changed my mind. I'm not going,” overwhelmed me. The girls would cheer, and I'd finally have a grand, cinematic resolution to at least one chapter of my life. But I knew this ending was not only impossible; it was also inaccurate. I'd never been the hero, saving these girls. They'd always been the ones rescuing me from romantic love's grip.

  By the time I finished saying my farewells to each girl, I felt heavy but empty all at the same time. I returned to my small classroom and stacked up all the white patio chairs in a corner. No one would be coming up here for a while. In the closet, I organized all the books, crayons, and notebooks, and then I said a little prayer that it wouldn't be long before they were used again. I gathered my backpack and my cupcake trays, took a deep breath, and walked out the door. No last look. No lingering in the doorway. I couldn't.

  As I neared the bottom of the staircase, I heard singing coming from the chapel, and as soon as I stepped into the courtyard, I saw pictures and letters taped to every post. To the background of the girls’ voices, I walked the perimeter of the courtyard, pulling down each of their letters. Daniela had drawn me a diamond ring. Above it she wrote,

  Joya, I hope you will return very soon because I want to see your beautiful green eyes and I want to tell you more than anything that finally in my life, I found a heart full of love. I love you. Come back soon.

  When I had finally made my way around the courtyard, I was standing at the chapel door. The Madre, in her white linen habit, turned to the girls and said, “Let us raise our voices and thank Joya for all the love she has shared with us.”

  I had barely made it past the doorway when the girls turned and surrounded me in my last group hug. I knew that I would not remember the words to their song but that the beauty of their voices and the touch of their hands would stay with me always. It was this thought of the girls no longer being in my present but shifting into my memories that unleashed the tears I'd been holding back all day. I looked around at the circle of arms that enveloped me, the mud walls, the small wooden pews, and the large cross standing at the head of the chapel and wondered what I could do with my life that would rival the fullness I knew now. Maybe I wouldn't start the master's program I'd been accepted to in San Diego. Maybe I would go back to school to get the skills to work with kids just like these. Maybe I would become a mother who no longer doubted that was enough of something to be.

  When I finally left, Hadi was waiting for me outside the internado gates. We went home and finished selling off our last few items of furniture, our bed, our desks, and our refrigerator. And then I stood back and let Hadi pack our remaining belongings. I watched him lay out everything we wanted to bring in the car, study their shapes, put some things in, and take others down. The process took two days, but now rather than fume over how long Hadi was taking to pack, I saw something in this, a gift for visualizing spaces. Hadi's mind held images—the inside of the car, a human body, a computer. My mind held only words; it made lists and told stories. And for the first time in our lives together, I understood that this was a good thing, that our different minds complemented each other.

  Hadi and I left Guadalajara at dawn on a Tuesday morning. He drove, and I read street names off the map because I could never find where we were until we'd already passed it. Somehow Hadi made sense of the clues I dropped him, and we got to where we were going. Together.

  I've always believed the best thing about being a writer is the company I get to keep. I am profoundly grateful to my writing community, the mentors and friends who have supported and encouraged me over the years. Susan Muaddi Darraj was my first writing teacher and the proof I needed that Arab women can, indeed, write. Neal Chandler taught me to treat my writing like a profession and founded the workshop that connected me to a wonderful group of early readers and to masterful editor Charles Oberndorf, whose feedback has been my personal master of fine arts. Developmental editor Jane Rosenman offered the definitive diagnosis on what was missing in this book and has been an ongoing source of advice and direction.

  My writing soulmates, Laura Maylene Walter and Jennifer Marie Donahue, are behind my every publication. Nothing is good enough until Laura and Jennifer read it, and I see them on every page of everything I write. Deonna Kelli Sayed has been a dear writing-friend and also a tremendous resource on bookselling and literary festivals. John Frank, Nouran Hashimi, Margari Hill, Narjes Misherghi, Tracy Niewenhous, and Lynn Ameen Rollins read early drafts and shared invaluable perspectives. Adrienne Brodeur, Saadia Faruqi, Bayley Freeman, Zareen Jaffery, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Soniah Kamal, Molly Nance, Aisha Saeed, Sabaa Tahir, and Jen Waite all offered much-needed encouragement and support at critical moments. Faith Adiele and Jasmin Darznik generously offered not just their time but also their names to my project. Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi, editors of the anthology Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women, published the first excerpt of this memoir and also created the most supportive community for their writers. I hope this book will carry on the much-needed conversation they started. And, I am so very thankful to Aspen Words and Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, with the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, for their generous gifts of fellowships.

  To the agent who finally chose me, Myrsini Stephanides, thank you for representing this book better than I could have myself. Your
confidence in this book and in me as a writer has been nothing short of a dream come true. To Maile Beal and others at the Carol Mann Agency, thank you for all your tireless efforts on my behalf. Suzanne Kingsbury, thank you for teaching me how to articulate and share the message in my own work. Liz Psaltis, thank you for showing me how to navigate my way in the world of book marketing. Christina Morris, thank you for my beautiful new website design, and Missy Chimovitz and Mariana Velez, thank you for making my book cover a love story in itself. And, most importantly, thank you to Steven L. Mitchell and all the wonderful people at Prometheus Books, Bruce Carle, Jeffrey Curry, Hanna Etu, Mark Hall, Jill Maxick, Lisa Michalski, Liz Mills, and Catherine Roberts-Abel, for being the change-makers we need in the world. Whatever I hoped to say with this book would be nothing without the champions, like you, getting my work into readers’ hands.

  Writing a memoir takes an entirely different kind of a toll on a family, and I would not have had the courage to send this book into the world were it not for the unwavering support of my parents and siblings, my in-laws, my husband, and most recently my children. (When they were younger, their support was only made possible through the assistance of many wonderful babysitters. For sticking with us the longest, I thank Emilie Sandham, Angie Allison, and Maggie Sabolik.) A special thank-you to my sister for cheering me on during our nightly chats and to my brother, the dynamic professor Ibrahim Al-Marashi, for not only marking up my drafts but for also always pushing me to situate my work into its wider historical context. To my dear husband, I owe a completely different kind of gratitude. This book has made him privy to thoughts no spouse should ever have to see let alone share with the world, and I thank him for embracing my purpose and vision for this project with such grace and generosity.