"What about your husband?"

At ten years old I remember the first time it was said. I was with my mother in our kitchen. She was making a classic Yemeni dish, a staple of our household. One of my father's favorites. She had asked me to watch her make it. At the time I refused, not because I detested cooking, but rather the cuisine. My mother placed a hand on her stomach, as if caressing my soon-to-be third brother, and gave me one of her flustered faces. The one that made her brows furrow and a line appear between them. A permanent landmark from weathering the tantrums of three girls and recklessness of two young boys.

I rejected the notion of learning the recipe on the grounds that I did not like the meal. My mother's response was, "What about your husband? What will he eat then?"

This was the first of many times my future husband was mentioned. A future staple of our household.

"We are Arabic. We are Muslims," my parents would emphatically preach. The latter a fact not to be questioned until I was much older. It would become the perpetuated mantra of my family, practiced by the instigation of various requests:

"Can I go to my friend's house?"

"There's a sleepover tomorrow..."

"I want to join a club after school."

"My class is going on a field trip out of town."

The responses varied, but were also the same:

"Why do you need to go? She is not Muslim."

"We are not like these American families. We do not 'sleep over'."

"You come home directly from school. No club."

"No trip. What will happen to you on this trip? What will people say if something happens to you?"

Rules were established and followed. No questions were asked without consequences. However, with age one tends to discover and experience more. At ten I experienced the first mention of a future betrothal. At twelve I began attending school at a local mosque. At fourteen my father beat me and locked me in the basement for the first time. At fifteen I was suicidal. At seventeen, homicidal. At nineteen, both. At twenty my father broke me.

As my siblings grew to accept their religious and cultural expectations, a deep bitterness grew within me. Eventually it came time for me to get married.

I did not get married.

My story begins here.