That morning, I couldn’t do any of those things.
I pulled her into my arms.
She patted my shoulder, trying to comfort me.
“It’s okay, Mama. I know how to be quiet now.”
Those words broke something inside me.
Not because I suddenly became brave. I wish courage worked that way.
I was terrified.
I was terrified of Khalid, of losing my daughter, of having nowhere to go, and of being judged by people who had never spent a night listening for footsteps outside their bedroom.
But for the first time, I was more frightened of what Lina was learning than of what Khalid might do to me.
I made a decision.
I would find a way to protect us.
I would do it carefully.
And I would stop believing that keeping a secret was the same as keeping my family together.
I began with a woman named Huda.
She lived three houses away and was one of the few people in our neighborhood who had never seemed impressed by Khalid’s reputation. She was a widow in her early fifties, a former school administrator who spoke gently but rarely wasted words.
