Laila told him she didn't care what other people did with their children.
“I'll keep a close eye on her,” Rasheed said, less patiently now. “It's a safe corner. There's a mosque across the street.”
“I won't let you turn my daughter into a street beggar!” Laila snapped.
The slap made a loud smacking sound, the palm of his thick-fingered hand connecting squarely with the meat of Laila's cheek.
It made her head whip around. It silenced the noises from the kitchen. For a moment, the house was perfectly quiet.
Then a flurry of hurried footsteps in the hallway
before Mariam and the children were in the living room, their eyes shifting from her to Rasheed and back.
Then Laila punched him. It was the first time she'd struck anybody, discounting the playful punches she and Tariq used to trade.
But those had been open-fisted, more pats than punches, self-consciously friendly,
comfortable expressions of anxieties that were both perplexing and thrilling.
They would aim for the muscle that Tariq, in a professorial voice, called the deltoid.
Laila watched the arch of her closed fist, slicing through the air, felt the crinkle of Rasheed's stubbly, coarse skin under her knuckles.
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