The Favored Daughter Read Online Free Page A

a good girl, which is why no one wants to marry her.”
    If the family doesn’t care about this gossip and lets the girl reach 16, the legal age for marriage, and allows her to marry someone of her choice or at least agree to the choice her parents have made, then she will have, at least in part, a happy life.
    But if the family is under financial pressure or listens to other’s gossip and marries their daughter off before she’s 15, then this little girl who heard “poor girl” at her birth will become a mother herself. And if she gives birth to a girl child then her little girl will hear the same words, “poor girl,” at birth, and so it goes on to her daughters’ daughters and their daughters.
    This is how I was born. The “poor girl” of an illiterate woman.
    â€œJust a girl” would have been my life story, and probably yours too. But the bravery of my mother changed our path. She is the hero of my dreams.
    With love,
Your mother

TWO
    â€œJUST A GIRL”
    The early part of my childhood was as golden as the mountain dawn—the light that tumbled directly from the sun across the Pamir mountain range down through the valley and onto the roofs of the mud houses in our village. My memories of that time are hazy, like images from a film, bathed in the colors of orange summer sun and white winter snow, the smells of the apple and plum trees outside our house, my mother’s radiant smiles, and the scent of her long, dark, plaited hair.
    Koof district, where we lived when I was a child, is one of the most remote corners of both Badakhshan and Afghanistan. The Koof valley is lush and fertile, banked with trees of rich greens and yellows, colors I’ve never seen anywhere else. Our house looked out at a sparkling blue river, pine and elm trees growing tall along the grassy banks that rose steeply into the mountains.
    The noises I recall from my early childhood are of a donkey braying, the sound of hay swishing as it is cut, the sound of the trickling river water, and the peals of children’s laughter. Even today my village sounds just the same. And Koof remains the only place in the world where I can close my eyes and fall blissfully, peacefully asleep within seconds.
    In front of our house was the garden, organized into market efficiency by my mother. We grew everything we needed: fruits of all kinds, peppers, olives, mulberries, peaches, apricots, apples, and huge yellow pumpkins; we even cultivated silk for weaving carpets. My father took great delight in importing trees and seeds from abroad, and our garden housed one of the only black cherry trees in all of Afghanistan. I remember the day it arrived and the sense of importance and occasion as the seedling was planted.
    During the warmer months, in the late afternoon the women would come and sit among the mulberry trees for half an hour or so; this was the only time of day they could relax. Each one would bring a small dish of something to eat, and they would sit, gossiping and chatting while the children played around them.
    In those days many villagers wore wooden shoes, as it was difficult for them to go to Faizabad and buy conventional shoes. The shoes were strong— there was an old man in the village who used to make wooden shoes, like carved gondola boats. He would put nails in the base so that when women went to fetch water in winter, they didn’t fall over. My fondest dream was to own a pair of these shoes. They were not for children, as they were tough, and when women came to visit and left them at the door I’d put them on and go out to play in them. Once I was wearing a beautiful embroidered dress my mother’s friend had made for me. I wasn’t supposed to go out in it, but I didn’t want to take it off, so I put on the wooden shoes and went to play with my friends near the water spring. Of course, I fell over in my big shoes and tore the dress.
    But my world began with the hooli