GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2022/23
MAHREEN SOHAIL
‘Sisters’
SADIA AS IMPENDING DISASTER: Something falls from the top shelf of a military ammunition facility in Rawalpindi and hits a grenade, which hits something else, which sets off missile after missile, and my older sister Sadia is launched into the world.
Sadia as Newborn: Sadia comes out of a gaping hole in my mother, the exact moment Ojhri camp explodes. My mother thinks the bang is coming from inside herself, that she has killed her first born, or her first born is killing her. Her ears ring with warning bells. The attendant nurse in the birthing room calls for Allah, her eyes wild. Outside in the waiting room, my father also paces in circles going, Ya Allah Reham.
Sadia as Afterbirth: Usually the afterbirth is the placenta and fetal membranes discharged from the uterus of a mother after a child is born. But in this case, I am the afterbirth, the second-born, the younger. When I am born two years later, my parents bring me home to Sadia. The country has already sewn itself back up the seams after the accident with the missiles.
Sadia as Playmate: I am willing to follow my older sister anywhere and into anything in those early years of blossoming adoration. When she is seven and I am five, Sadia makes me clean the house when our mother isn’t home. She is not religious but she has strong leadership tendencies. Clean girls are good girls, she says, hovering over me with a broom.
Sadia as Adolescent: At thirteen, Sadia comes into our room holding up her underwear, white cotton with a bright red spot on it. She waves it around like a flag and her surrendering words are, I am dying. No one has ever spoken to us about periods. I burst into tears. Sadia seems beatific, a true martyr, my leader in life. In the midst of my tears I remember that if she dies I won’t have to share the room. Our mother walks in looking for a comb, spots Sadia waving around the bloody underwear. And when our mother’s expression changes to one of – what? fear? – we both know it to be true: Sadia is dying. The room, I think, this room is so big and soon it will all be mine!
Sadia as Killer: Sadia almost kills a man. We are both outside, I am fourteen and she is sixteen and an uncle walks up the gate. He is not a real uncle, just a man our father knows who lives in the house three doors down from us. He hangs around the gate and says, What do you girls like to do? Sadia is already too cool for him but I say, Umm, err, watch movies. The sun beats down on his head and like a creep he says, Like blue movies? And from our classmates at school who have nose rings we already know blue movies is code for porn, and I am embarrassed and ashamed. But Sadia, quick as a flash is by the gate and she says, Yes, and then she says, Come closer, and the uncle does. His eyes are so happy, probably the happiest they’ve ever been. When he’s close enough, Sadia leans over, something glints in her hand and it is the swiss army knife she got from school for spelling e x t r a p o l a t e correctly. Through a gap in the gate, she pokes it in the man-uncle’s knee. Owww he says, like a wounded dog, Owwww. The leg spurts blood. I will have you randi’s killed, he says while leaving. We are breathing hard. Sadia looks at me and says, No one should hurt us. He never comes back.
Sadia as Replica: It’s true what they say. Sisters are cast from the mold their mother shed a long time ago. A study in parts; a lip here, a mouth there, what lovely eyes we have.
Sadia as Marriage Prospect: When she is eighteen men begin to propose marriage to Sadia as if a target has materialized on her forehead. You will be beautiful too, people tell me consolingly when they sit in our drawing room, eyeing her. One man and his family drape themselves across our sofas. They spin lies out of their mouths, for e.g. Our son makes 27 lakh a month, He went to UC Berkeley. Sadia nods at the family, says, I got into UC Berkeley too and so I can’t get married because I have to study, before getting up and leaving the room. Later our mother slaps both of us when she catches us laughing about the man and calls us disobedient. After she leaves the room, Sadia lies on the bed, the stinging red palm an alarm on her cheek and says, The thing is, I am in love with someone else.
Sadia as Lover: She has seen him on the terrace of his house from the terrace of our house, lifting weights and skipping rope. She takes me upstairs to show him to me in the evening and says, Ah, when he appears. It is clear that he knows she is watching. He jumps and jumps against the setting sky, his body thin and wiry under his clothes. He’s trying to build muscle, she giggles as if she has known him for years. Have you spoken to him? I ask her in my lightest tone as jealousy pounds a hole inside me. She is no longer just mine, has already been initiated into the world of true movie-like love and left me behind. This is swiftly proven when she replies, her nose in the air, We don’t need to talk.
Sadia as Teacher: She explains the boy to me. When I remind her that she doesn’t know him, she says, Can’t you tell he is not like that, touching the curve of her neck as if he lives there. She says, He just looks kind. She smiles and smiles and smiles. She says, He would come over if I asked him to, even with just my eyes. I stare at him in the evenings with my sister, suspicious and alarmed: What if he is trying to build the muscles in his arms for the exclusive purpose of hurting her? What if she marries him and I have to live in this house all alone for many years because no one wants to marry me?
Sadia as Disobedient Daughter: Sadia spends an actual year and a half staring at him. When she is twenty-one, she finally tells our mother: I want to marry him, Ammi. If you don’t let me, I will anyway. And our mother bursts into tears and says, The day you were born was a black day for a reason. That night the whole house contracts and mourns our small family, set aflame as it is by love at first sight.
Sadia as Home: Over the next few months, Sadia curls into me every night and hugs me around the waist and says, You are my best friend in the whole world, please be on my side. I stay silent, go to sleep with her going please please plea – in my ear.
Sadia as Obedient Daughter: She stirs sugar into tea for our father, plies him with shami kebabs as if he is a guest in his own house. I know what you’re trying to do, he says, But your mother knows best.
Sadia as Advisor: You should study abroad, she tells me, when I am applying to colleges. Go to UC Berkeley. She says this like a defeat, as if she has been forcibly strapped to the line of her sight which remains on that other terrace. You don’t even know if he likes you, I tell her with disgust. You go to UC Berkeley.
Sadia in Winter: Sadia eats mandarins in front of the heater and leaves the peels there on the rug so the whole house smells like roasted orange rinds. This is the smell that I think of often, the smell of the year before Sadia got married, the last real year of my life.
Sadia in Protest: Six months pass, and Sadia stops eating. Who is he? My mother says, trying to slap her out of it. Are. You. Fucking. Him. You. Slut. Nobody slaps me or comes near me, but maybe that is because I am the only real daughter now.
Sadia as College Student: I enroll in the same college as Sadia, where she continues to ace all her exams. She’s very popular. Sometimes when I walk across the quad, I see her with her friends, up on the grassy area. They are obsessed with practicing running jumps, God knows why. Sadia hikes up her shalwar, her little leg hairs wave in the air, she runs, and then leaps across the grass. I can see the other girls’ mouths open and close in astonishment. She’s so good, they seem to be saying to each other about my sister. To what end, I wonder, as the college classes drone on and on around us.
Sadia as Idiot: The boy from the terrace comes over! He brings his parents too. The parents smile at the room and extend an offer, We would like to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage. I have to bite my tongue to keep from giving them my hand. Maybe that would be funny. The boy is thinner close up, all those years jumping and nothing to show for it. Our parents look at Sadia who is aglow with happiness. Let us think about it, is what they say to these other parents. The boy and Sadia smile at each other. No rope in his hands, just my sister’s life. Did you see how respectfully the family sat on the sofas? she asks me afterwards spinning round and round in our room.
Sadia as Confidante: I tell Sadia I am love with the brother of a friend of mine the night after our parents agree to her match with the boy from the rooftop, about four months after the boy comes over with his parents. We are both staring at the ceiling from our respective beds. She laughs. I never forgive her for immediately knowing that I am lying. Not for the rest of my life.
Sadia as Bride: All of Sadia’s friends come to the wedding and dance frenetic circles around her shining self. I dance too. Later the couple says yes to each other, and then they sit on the sofa on the stage; the boy a reed, waiting to be picked, my sister next to him willing and able. Despite ourselves we are all awed to be guests in the presence of true love. I take every chance I get to stuff sweets in her mouth. Even when she says stop, I don’t, trying to sugar coat the fact of her impending departure.
Sadia as Absence (I): That night after I get home from the wedding, I go upstairs and find the surprise she has left for me: there is a new king-sized bed in the room we had shared growing up, our two twins are nowhere in sight. There is a note on the bed: Of course, my baby sister gets a dowry too. Love always, Sadia. I will myself not to cry from how much I miss her, fall asleep trying to decide whether the gift is thoughtful or cruel.
Sadia as Absence (II): Sadia comes over with her new husband and they drape themselves across the sofas as guests in our house. She wears gold bangles and carries mithai. When we get a moment alone, just me, her and our mother, I ask her why she is behaving like an aunty now. She leans in and says, I don’t kiss and tell, but boy that first night was good. My mother and her peal into laughter. When the couple leaves, I watch her tuck her arm into the bow of his elbow. I realize then that all this time I have been ignoring my own becoming because I have been watching hers, and she hasn’t spared a thought for me at all.
Sadia as Absence (III): At night I dream of Sadia jumping off a terrace. She takes the leap while calling my name and I struggle in my bed to wake up.
Sadia as Soother: She says, It’s 3 am. Of course I’m alive. Is everything okay? The panic in her voice is soothing. I manage to go back to sleep.
Sadia as Wife: Over the next year, Sadia and my mother talk on the phone. She asks my mother about doctors, about recipes, about how to starch clothes properly. When she comes over to take us shopping in her new family’s car with her new family’s driver, I notice her purse is missing the Pakistan is my mother badge that’s always pinned to it. What happened to it? I ask, and she shrugs. Grow up, she says. And then later, by way of apology, How is the last year of college going?
Sadia as Pregnant Woman: The doctor says Sadia has to take calcium and folic acid because the baby is leeching calcium out of her to grow stronger. She is twenty-four and I am twenty-two. It’s true there are holes in her teeth, her knees crack when she gets up. For the first time, I feel sorry for her. She can sense it. She becomes quiet around me. Once, she is over and fanning herself in the June heat, her stomach a small round ball someone has pasted on her body. Suddenly she hisses, I am going to lock you in a cupboard if you don’t stop eating that peanut butter. I stop, mid-spoon. Our mother laughs. You’ll feel better in a few months, she tells Sadia.
Sadia as Advisor: At school, I study very hard and when I come home, I eat meals with my parents. Sometimes some of the girls ask me if I’d like to practice long jumps, but I resolutely say no. I do not want to give people the impression that I will follow in Sadia’s footsteps. She has already done everything a woman is expected to do and those are very high expectations to live up to. Even now, she is growing a baby (!) as I study and sleep and wonder about the rest of my life. Sometimes, Sadia calls me in the evenings and asks me how I’m doing, she wants to gossip about our teachers, but I give her non-committal answers. Everything is exactly how you left it. She sighs, says, Don’t get married, and I think of the vastness of my life and how I am not sure I want to get married, but also of how it doesn’t seem like I could get married even if I wanted to as I do not know any men. If you wanted to get married, you could, she says confidently, But you’re smarter than me so you should study.
Sadia as Coffee Drinker: The one thing Sadia won’t give up during pregnancy is coffee. She drinks two cups a day and maintains it will be fine for the baby. Our mother cries and pleads with her to stop but she doesn’t. Sadia is serene. She says, I won’t. She is like a bitter gourd stuck to a vine, finally able to wave blissfully against our mother now that she is also almost a mother. I work on graduate college applications in the evenings.
Sadia as Mother: Sadia calls me crying two months after the birth of her daughter. It is 3 am and I am awake because I have just started working as a journalist at a 24/7 private news outlet. She asks through real sobs, Was I as boring a daughter as my daughter? I remind her of the story of her birth and how exciting it was, and she says, A black day indeed, and hangs up.
Sadia as Divorcee: Sadia says nothing has happened though we all question her closely about ropes and weights and the harm they can do to the body of a woman when used by a man. At work, my boss says I have to look at the heart of a story and report from its eye. As a family, we examine Sadia’s eyes for the heart. She seems okay. She says over and over again as if she is in a perpetual state of surprise, He’s just such an average guy. Our mother looks at her afraid, asks over and over again in retaliation; Is that really what your problem is? It is clear any other reason would be better.
Sadia as Villain: Sadia’s husband’s parents come over and weep, Sadia’s husband comes over and weeps. They think there is a ghost in her. Nobody understands her discontentment. They say, Think how bad a divorce will be for the baby girl. Our parents nod in agreement. Before Sadia moves back in, I email the admissions offices of the universities where I have been admitted, tell them I will need to decline their offers. They write back and urge me to defer for a year, see how I feel in another semester, maybe two. Sadia and I sleep on the king-sized bed together with the baby. One night she whispers, It’s all the coffee and we both begin to laugh.
Sadia as Possessed: A lady who is renowned in certain circles for being fluent in the language of God comes over. She takes Sadia into the drawing room and asks her to lie down with her shirt off. My mother and I stand there too. I close my fist around the swiss army knife. Just in case. The lady says some verses over Sadia’s back, sprinkles holy water on her. We all pray for her to come to her senses. After the lady leaves, Sadia calmly puts her shirt back on, reaches up with her hands so my mother can give her back the baby and says, I still want a divorce. I want so badly to be possessed by her clarity in that moment that I almost die.
Sadia as Driver: Sadia starts learning how to drive six months after moving back. She says now that she lives at home again she needs basic skills. We learn together, take turns on the street outside our house, venturing further and further every day. Soon, we start taking the baby out. Our father says, You will all get killed. I am drunk on the power of access to transport, drunk on being an adult and alone with my sister again, as we were when we were young. We eat at a restaurant close to our house, leaving the car doors unlocked, heady on freedom.
Sadia as Impetus: One Sunday, on the way home, her eyes on the road, Sadia tells me that I need to start experiencing my own life. The words wound me. They come out of nowhere, as things often do in the middle of fine Spring days. I have never vocalized to myself that I am spending all my time riding on Sadia’s coattails, but Sadia has known and has never said anything until now. In the car, I want to die of shame. A month later, I open those applications again, grateful that I did not decline, write back to see if there is a way to convert the Defer to an Accept and start in the fall.. They all write back with emails that start with Congratulations!
Sadia as Catalyst: Sadia is the first to leap up from the table to hug me when I tell the family over lunch one afternoon, that I have been accepted into the Graduate Program of Journalism at UC Berkeley. She is twenty-eight and I am twenty-six. You didn’t tell me you applied, she whispers in my ear, sounding a little surprised. It’s because of you, I tell her, trying to smile. When I look into her eyes, I see that she remembers the words she flung carelessly in the car that day. I am gratified when she looks away first, turns instead to the baby bawling on her hip. For the first time, it occurs to me that my sister might also be scared of who she will be if I am no longer who I have always been.
Sadia as Opposer: For days, I start sentences with At UC Berkeley – and at first Sadia smiles, but then more and more I notice she leaves the room when I talk about leaving for America. One day, when I am telling her about how I have to sign up for my elective classes exactly a week before they begin and no sooner and no later, she suddenly bursts, Will you please be quiet? There are more important things in life! Immediately, she looks ashamed. I’m sorry, she says to my hurt face and my parents’ surprised faces, I’m so so sorry. The baby begins to laugh and I reach for her and bury my head in her neck to hide the sudden onslaught of tears. I am also scared of who I will be if my sister is not who she has always been, i.e. sure of herself and myself and our place together in this world.
Sadia as Stopper: A month after I tell the family about my acceptance to UC Berkley, I lie in bed with Sadia, the baby between us like a plant. I think Sadia is asleep until I hear her suddenly speak. Please stay, she says. It is almost a whisper and she does not repeat herself. And suddenly, I remember all those years ago when she asked me, nightly, to be on her side when she was trying to marry the boy. I need her to be on my side now, and let me leave so I can learn to hold myself in other permutations of love. I keep my breathing even so it seems like I’m already asleep. In the morning, she doesn’t bring it up again. It doesn’t feel so bad after all, carving this space out for myself in the face of her need.
Sadia as Vicarious Student: At UC Berkeley, all the roofs are shingled red. A boy at the graduate student orientation walks up to me and says, This just in, I’m Justin, and shows me all his teeth. Later on the phone I tell Sadia, who says, Did you remember to pack the swiss army knife?
Sadia as Injured Person: Another thing that comes out of nowhere: My father calls when I have only been in America for three weeks, and says, Your mother was sitting in the front seat with the baby on her lap. Sadia was driving. The taxi appeared and the two cars made contact. He lists out the coordinates of the accident over the crackling phone line: Three generation of women flying in the air: my mother, the baby and Sadia. I have trouble listening to my father on the phone because all I can think is oh this big thing is finally happening to my life and I am not even there for it. And I think of Sadia’s eyes in the car, a person all their own, wide and terrified at the idea of living on in the body of a mother who is witnessing the death of her child. I think of my father pacing circles in the hospital waiting room going, Ya Allah Reham down the phone line. I ask if I should come back, and he says, Wait until we know more. I know that even if he said, Yes come back, I could not bring myself to go back to the scene of a disaster. One look, and I might get stuck inside it.
Sadia as Absence (IV): My father calls again and says, The baby and my mother are fine, only a few minor scratches, but Sadia is hanging by a thread. She has still not woken up. He will keep me up-to-date. My mother only weeps on the phone when he gives the phone to her. While I wait for the next few hours and then days, I wear my phone around my neck like a talisman, leave it on vibrate so when anyone calls it feels like my heart has jump-started against my chest. Sometimes, I try to go to classes. In my Conflict in the Middle East course I have trouble concentrating. Sadia yells in my head, her mouth bloody after the accident, Pakistan is my mother! Shut up, I yell at the walls when I get home, That doesn’t even make sense and you don’t even believe that. You took that off your purse years ago.
Sadia as Critic: Two weeks after the accident, Justin invites me to his house and I accept for want of a distraction. The two of us stand near the fridge and he leans into me. I turn my face a little to the side, embarrassed and he moves away. Sorry, he says, It’s just that you did come over, and I nod. It’s hard to argue with facts, is the mantra of journalism students everywhere. I did come over, I repeat, before leaving, embarrassed. Sadia could be dead, I say out loud when I’m walking home. In my head, Sadia confirms that I’m right; Good job stating the facts, she says, rasping for breath. It occurs to me that if I do everything she doesn’t want me to do, maybe she will live to spite me. When I get home, I call Justin and invite him over to my house.
Sadia as Admonisher: Justin comes over late that very night and sits at the dining table with me. Sadia is there too. We talk for a long time about classes. He believes the Middle East has intractable problems. Those are his exact words, intractable problems, and he looks closely at me to make sure I am on board with this. I’m Pakistani, I tell him shrugging. We both laugh. Dead Sadia rolls her eyes and says, If I wasn’t already dead, I would want to be at what a lame old fart this guy is. Justin asks if he can spend the night on the couch, and even though his house is close by and there is no reason for him to stay, I say, Yes. He’s going to keep asking until he’s in your bed, my sister warns me.
Sadia as Survivor: Three weeks after the accident, Dead Sadia wakes up. The doctor explains it to my parents. I imagine they have spent every day waiting blankly in the hospital waiting room with animal looks on their faces. Later, my mother tells me that before the doctor told them the good news, she said to him, Sadia’s baby is young, like a plea. The doctor nodded, said, Don’t worry, there’s good news. He explained it to them, Sadia’s eyes jerked backwards and forwards in her head with the car during the accident. She’s woken up, but she can’t see. He says she might have trouble seeing. Maybe for a while. Maybe forever. Later, when she is able to, Sadia speaks to me on the phone, croaks, Thank god my daughter is safe, as if this is the normal reaction to finding out you could be blind.
Sadia as Celebration: I go to a party that night to celebrate. A boy called Brian spills wine on my clothes. When Justin comes over to help, Brian drunkenly puts an arm around Justin’s shoulder and says to me, He likes them exotic doesn’t he, our friend? They both beam but I stare at them so they become uncomfortable. Finally, I walk away. That night Justin texts me: I’m sorry, say the words on my phone, You’re teaching me to be a better person. Ok, I text back, and then block him.
Sadia as Mirror: Sadia and I have the same eyes yes, but my nose is longer and sharper, and my forehead smaller, I have some weight on my upper arms.
Sadia as Blind Woman: When she comes home from the hospital, Sadia calls me and says, Every day I am going to thank God for saving my daughter. Still, when my mother takes the phone from her, she tells me Sadia is fumbling to pour milk, fumbling to lift the baby, fumbling to even walk from room to room without bumping into chairs and lamps.
Sadia as Phoning-it-in: Here is the trajectory of blindness over a year: first, my older sister said, I am so glad my daughter is alive. Second she said, I wish I could see. Third, she said, I’m so angry everyone survived except me.
Sadia as Cheerleader: Sadia calls less and less, and then not at all. On my one year anniversary in America I dream that my older sister is standing spot lit on a stage. Around her my eyes gleam. In my dream guilt is a real cockroach eating at my insides but Sadia steps on it, squashes my internal organs while blithely speaking, You should have come back! What are you doing over there, except trying to catch up with all the life I’ve already lived! Here in this other country, I am resolved to try to make people who don’t know me love only me, so I can prove to myself it can happen.
Sadia as Sexpert: One night after class, and two weeks before I go back home to visit, I find Brian-friend-of-Justin. I say; I’d like to have sex. I push the words out before I have the time to think about what I’m staying. The thing is, I know that I can’t go back as the same person I was when I left. Sadia lost her eyes, and I still have nothing to show for mine. Not even something as basic as a penis! He stops and looks at me, breaks his face open with a smile. I’ve never slept with a woman from another country before, he says. I don’t tell him I’ve never slept with anyone except Sadia before, because that would be weird.
Sadia as Amused Audience: After undressing me, Brian asks me if I am sure. Yes, I nod. He leans towards his wallet, pulls out a condom and presses it on while I appear disinterested. I think this smells like plastic. That’s when Sadia appears in my head. In a taunting voice she jumbles her sentences, No one can hurt us and I don’t kiss and tell, but boy that first night was good. Brian positions himself on top of me, kisses my shoulder, looks excited for a second. I thought for sure you were fucking Justin this past year, he says. Sadia finally speaks up. Red flag, she says and I am so relieved to hear that she is still here and looking out for me that I say, I think we should stop. Brian pauses and lifts himself off me a little. His mouth opens and closes, before he arranges his features into one of concern. He says, If your parents had you sewn shut, you could tell me. He’s scared when I begin to laugh, sits up with his back to me, gets dressed quickly and leaves.
Sadia as Stranger: They are all waiting in the doorway when my airport taxi pulls up to the house at the start of July. The baby leans away from me because she does not recognize me anymore. Sadia is a little thinner and stares right through me when she hugs me, It’s so good to have you back! she says before turning to her daughter to lift her up and pat her back. I do not know what to do with my body so my parents engulf me in their arms, my father tears up a little. Later, over lunch, my parents say they have been waiting to surprise me, Sadia got some good news today! The doctor has told her that her ophthalmology x-rays seem to be showing some improvement. That night, Sadia and I lie awake for a long time without speaking. Finally I say, I’m sorry, and am grateful that my voice doesn’t break as I say it. She scoffs, says, What about? When I don’t reply she says a little gentler this time, I didn’t expect you to hang around me forever. The sentence soaks up the room. Speaking of hanging out, I finally say, and begin to tell her about Brian. He smelled a bit like American cleaning products, I end. She holds her stomach while she laughs, tears fall down her cheeks and I think I will never feel happier than at this moment. Finally, we both fall silent again. She says, Maybe he would have done the dishes everyday though. I look at her. She shrugs. I hear men there like doing the dishes. We fall asleep giggling.
Sadia as Patient: Our mother tells Sadia she needs to look at the color green to continue healing her eyes. I drive her to the trails near the Margalla hills one day. We sit at the foot of the hills, facing the forest, as whole families move past us to spread across the mountains. We stare and stare at the leaves of trees, craning our necks, sometimes talking, most often not. While we sit there, Sadia brings a leaf closer and further from her face over and over again. She says, You know before you left I asked you to stay, and I know you heard me. When I look at her, her face is empty of any expression. My stomach coils in on itself and tightens. If she asks me to stay now, I know I will. A little boy stands by a car in the parking lot near the entrance to the trails trying to pull open a car door. She sighs. I’m proud of you, she says. I’ll miss you when you leave again.
Sadia as Sister: The night before my flight back to America, my mother lies down with Sadia, the baby and I, and into the baby’s ear she half laughs, half whispers the story of what happened when she brought me back from the hospital the afternoon of my birth. She says our father leant down to show my face to Sadia, and before he could stop her, Sadia leaned in and darted out her small pink tongue. She licked my face all the way from my temple to my mouth. I want to taste what I taste like, she said by way of explanation, when our father snatched me back. The room is awash in the soft, pale-green light from the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted on the ceiling as my mother speaks and Sadia and I reach for each other’s hands to the sound of her voice. Tomorrow, we will wake up, and I will fly back to where I live, and over the course of our lives, the endings will arrive for us again and again, and each time, demand to be welcomed with open arms. Nobody has taught me that living a life that is entirely your own is also an act of mourning. But for now I am holding my big sister’s hand in bed and she is holding mine too.
MAHREEN SOHAIL has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College where she studied as a Fulbright scholar. Her writing has appeared in Granta, A Public Space, Guernica, Kenyon Review, etc. She has been awarded fellowships by Yaddo, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, and was previously a Charles Pick Fellow at the University of East Anglia.