“Be careful.”
“Why? Because the truth is uncomfortable?”
Zayd turned toward me.
“I didn’t know she was Layla when I met her. I knew her as Nour, and she knew me as Amir. We both kept parts of our lives hidden.”
He paused.
“But now we’re sitting here discussing whether she is worthy of marriage because of something that happened between two consenting adults.”
My father’s face hardened.
“This is not the same thing.”
Zayd immediately asked, “Why not?”
Nobody answered.
He looked at his own father.
“If I had told you this morning that I had spent the night with a woman, would you have decided I was unworthy of marriage?”
His father remained silent.
“Would you have called me a disgrace? Would you have told everyone that I had destroyed the family name?”
Still no answer.
Zayd looked toward my mother.
“But because the woman was your daughter, suddenly everything about her is reduced to one question.”
