The Laughter by Sonora Jha

To: Khan, Ruhaba From: Khan, Ruhaba Pick with care the kind of fools you will suffer. The secret you bear this time isn't one to let slip even to the village idiot. It will be your undoing, and what an undoing that will be, babygirl. Do not imagine that a single person you know will understand. The one who may support the part of you that is woman will not stomach this kind of woman. The one who may support the part of you that is Muslim will not support the kind of eruption you devise. The one that loves you as the radical will abhor the part that summons the exquisite. Men, mothers, lovers, professors, friends, students, grocers. the world will say you are evil from head to When Ruhaba and the boy alighted from my car, I willed myself not to dwell on whether I would ever find her at such closeness again. Already, she and her ward were fading into blurred shapes within the wet onslaught of the October night. I stepped out and lingered, as politeness would allow me, the gentleman who waits until a lady has at least entered her front door. She lived in an odd house, not one of the many brand-new swanky ones that had sprouted up in this part of the city like bright candles on a moldy cake, but a somewhat older, somewhat beaten-up one. There was no order to the other homes on the street and there were no sidewalks. To the right of her was what looked like a crack-house, complete with a chain-link fence and an old white Cadillac with a shattered windshield. In a house across the street, a dog on a chain in the front yard barked without a sense of purpose. The townhouse to her left sat dark and immutable, with not even a porch light but with a neon sign in its window that read I Heart My Muslim Neighbor. Jesus.

Just as I was about to get back into the comforting familiarity of my car, I saw the shape of two men rise from Ruhaba's porch. Ruhaba halted in her tracks and grabbed the boy's arm. The two of them took a few steps back. I froze. I had no instinct to step up and throw myself to their defense, but my eyes were riveted and my hands gripped the door handle. My brain scrambled for a response. Honk the horn? Call 9-1-1?