Atria Books

We told our father we didn't want to be girls. It wasn't fair that we • weren't allowed to go out with him and do all the things that Mahad could. Abeh would always protest, and quote the Quran: "Paradise is at the feet of your mother!" But when we looked down at them, our mother's bare feet were cracked from washing the floor every day, and Abeh's were clad in expensive Italian leather shoes. We burst out laughing every time, because in every sense of the word, Paradise was not at her feet but at his. He was important, he was saving Somalia, he had lovely clothes, he went outside when he wanted to. And we, and she, were not

allowed to do as we wished.

Womanhood was both irresistibly desirable and essentially filthy,