A Place for Us

Almost every character in the novel retrospectively realizes that they could have handled certain interactions differently—and to the benefit of all involved. When Hadia and Amar are in school, Amar cheats on a spelling test; Amar does this because he wants the shoes his father promised him as a reward for a perfect test score, and Amar also longs for a personal triumph within his family and his father’s praise. Hadia becomes jealous and spitefully tells their father that Amar cheated on the test. Because of this, Amar loses his reward, his personal triumph, and his father’s pride.

However, it isn’t until Hadia and Amar are both adults that Hadia realizes she sabotaged her brother’s successes to further her own. Upon Hadia and Amar’s reunion on her wedding day, Hadia reflects, “She should have been kinder. Three years [the length of Amar’s separation from his family] had changed her brother, lent seriousness to his features, shadows pressed beneath his eyes […]” (10). Hadia notices negative changes in Amar’s physical appearance and demeanor as an adult—he appears withered, both emotionally and physically: A slouch denotes his loss of confidence, and his bones show through his clothes. She feels responsible for his substance abuse and separation from his family, wondering if Amar’s life would have been different if he was successful or earned their father’s praise.

Similarly, Layla doesn’t realize that her decision to tell Seema about Amar and Amira’s relationship was a terrible mistake until she sees how it affected Amar, both in the months leading up to his estrangement and after their confrontation at Hadia’s wedding. In Part 2, Section 7, Hadia observes, “Amar never tried to be anyone other than himself, but now [Hadia] sees that perhaps […] he had been trying, for Amira Ali, to become the kind of man who could send a decent proposal” (175). Because of Amira, Amar was driven to attend a good college and earn a respectable living—if it meant that her parents would accept him as Amira’s husband. Given that Layla is the one to inform Seema of Amira and Amar’s meetings, Layla carries considerable guilt over her role in the misery that led Amar to withdraw from the family. Without Amira, Amar lost his sense of purpose; he no longer had any reason to better himself.

Rafiq doesn’t realize he should have been gentler with his sensitive, perpetually struggling son until years after driving Amar away from the entire family. In Part 4, Rafiq speaks from his own perspective, from a place of regret, as he reflects on his parenting choices and Amar’s life, starting with Amar’s birth. Rafiq purposely did not name Amar after a “holy figure,” but he regrets his choice now after witnessing Amar’s downward spiral: If Amar were given a holy name to live up to or respect, Rafiq wonders whether it would have motivated Amar to make better choices. During Amar’s childhood, Rafiq did not bond with him in the way Rafiq bonded with his daughters, who showed Rafiq that they loved him and needed him. Instead, Amar and Rafiq brought out the worst in each other: Amar’s disrespect fueled Rafiq’s anger, and they clashed. They would always have distance between them. Only on his deathbed, full of regret, does Rafiq offer Amar any kind of reconciliation—and even that ends up happening at significant remove, with Rafiq’s message relayed to Amar on the phone by Rafiq’s grandson, Abbas.