Then she heard her grandmother’s voice from the courtyard below. Umi Khadija wasn’t singing; she was humming an old Andalusian melody, a song about a ship lost at sea finding its way home by the stars.
Rarah had chosen the blue one. The fish reminded her of the fountain in the main square, where she and Amal would toss breadcrumbs and watch the world spin by.
That night, Rarah took off the hijab before bed. She folded it carefully, placing it on the pillow beside her. She ran her fingers over the tiny silver fish one last time.
All her life, the women in her family—her mother, her aunties, her cousin Leila—had worn the hijab. For them, it was as natural as breathing. But Rarah saw it as a riddle. A beautiful, complicated, terrifying riddle.