All My Rage

Sal starts dealing drugs and makes enough money to get Ama’s car back and pay several bills. He pays down the business loan by $800 and gets an extension on the deadline. Noor finds Sal and Art talking together, but Sal hides the truth from her and worries that criminal activity might be changing his character. In Sal’s apartment, Abu appears sober, and Noor and Sal pray namaz together. Sal accidentally nudges Noor’s arm while looking through the refrigerator, and when Noor has a dramatic reaction, she claims the freezer door at the liquor shop injured her arm. A moment later, Noor and Sal lock eyes when Noor puts her finger on Sal’s lips to silence him, and Sal feels overcome by physical attraction to Noor. Sal’s burner phone for drug clients breaks the spell, and Sal worries Noor may know what he’s using it for, although he chooses not to tell her about selling drugs.

After receiving an admission rejection from Northwest, Noor goes to the Juniper mosque to pray. The mosque is on Juniper’s military base and is shared by several religions, which use the building on separate days. Noor knows her last chance at getting out of Juniper is an acceptance to UCLA, the only school she still hasn’t heard from. Noor talks with Imam Shafiq and his wife Khadija, and while they are talking, he flashes back to the dramatic moment between her and Salahudin recently, wondering whether Salahudin has feelings for her. Returning to her conversation with the Imam, Noor asks him about parents who don’t protect their children, explaining quickly about Salahudin’s father and his drinking problem. Shafiq promises to visit Toufiq and invites Noor to a home-cooked meal with him and Khadija, but Noor declines. As she rides home, Noor thinks of how connected Imam Shafiq is to Pakistan despite being born in America. She wishes she could know Pakistan like he does and goes so far as to wish that he and Khadija were her family.

When Noor walks inside the house, Chachu accuses her of going to the mosque, which he forbids. He keeps her from everything Pakistani, never cooking cultural foods or speaking Punjabi or Urdu. As Noor watches Chachu open and close his fists, she thinks again of how he rescued her and how she owes her life to him. Chachu takes away Noor’s bike, and Noor goes to her room to work on her poetry analysis essay. She and Salahudin text about it, and he helps her understand the poem better, which is about how easy it is to lose things in life. When Noor stops texting back, Sal calls her, and Noor starts to cry. She explains that she was rejected from another school and quickly ends the call by claiming her phone is out of battery.

The following day at school, Salahudin questions Noor about why she hung up last night and feels something more is bothering her than the college rejections. She dodges his questions, however, and as she leaves, Jamie approaches Sal and asks to buy Adderall, but Salahudin refuses to sell to her. Angry, Jamie threatens to tell Noor about Salahudin’s drug dealing. After school, Sal gives Noor a ride home, and Noor again puts up a wall, refusing to tell him what’s truly bothering her. Salahudin spends the rest of his afternoon selling drugs, and when he gets home, Ashlee is waiting for him. Her painkiller prescription is out, and she needs meds for her back. Sal is hesitant but eventually sells to Ashlee, telling himself that after earning the rest of the money to pay off the bank loan, he will stop dealing drugs.

When Junaid failed to show up for his usual daily visit, Misbah called his house, but to no avail. When she made her way to Junaid and Nargis’s house, she found police officers and learned that Nargis had come home drunk and been electrocuted by the live wires on the veranda. Junaid had tried to save her and also had been electrocuted; both of them died. After their burial, Misbah saw Toufiq “lose himself in drink” for the first time (155).

Noor receives her first ever “F” on an assignment in English class, and Jamie gloats when she sees it. The teacher, Mrs. Michaels, calls on Noor to read aloud, and as she reads, Noor feels overwhelmed by anger and despair that she’s failing at her attempts to leave Juniper. The words on the page blur, and Noor is frozen by fear, unable to keep reading. Salahudin sees her struggling and pulls the fire alarm to save her, claiming he smelled gasoline. Noor and Salahudin talk to Mrs. Michaels privately, and when Sal promises to work on writing a story for a contest that Mrs. Michaels has been encouraging him to enter, Mrs. Michaels says she might smell gas too. Mrs. Michaels then talks to Noor alone and invites her to share how she’s feeling and what she’s heard from colleges, but Noor gives surface-level answers and doesn’t tell Mrs. Michaels how she’s really feeling.

Noor again sees Art and Salahudin talking after school, and she’s suspicious, but Sal dodges her questions. They go to Thurber’s, a fast food restaurant, where Salahudin spots Ashlee sitting with Kaya and her mom. He notices that Ashlee does not look well and seems to have lost weight in the last few days. Over fries and sandwiches, Noor tells Salahudin about her F on the poetry analysis draft and how she still hasn’t heard from UCLA; even her online portal for the college says there’s an error when she tries to log in. Salahudin accidentally says he loves Noor when encouraging her to hold out hope for UCLA, and Noor blushes in response. When Noor says she knows he meant it as a friend, he says, “Untrue,” without thinking (167). They share an electric stare and hold hands momentarily, but neither opens up about the secrets they are hiding.

When Noor and Salahudin make it back to the motel, Imam Shafiq and Khadija are there. Salahudin is embarrassed for the Imam to see Abu’s alcoholism and begs Noor to stay, but she has to get home. After a brief conversation with Khadija, who pointedly says that Shafiq wouldn’t judge someone else for his or her struggles, Noor walks home. She listens to music before going inside and thinks about all the challenges in her life—Chachu’s vengefulness, Uncle Toufiq’s drinking problem, Auntie Misbah’s death, Jamie’s vendetta against her—and feels her rage straining to get out in the form of a scream. Instead of giving in to it, she pushes it down and thinks of Auntie Misbah’s last word to her: “Forgive” (171). Noor wonders how she can forgive all of these wrongs in her life.

This flashback takes place in Juniper, California. Misbah and Toufiq drove toward the motel they purchased, excited to see it for the first time. As she looked at the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the drive, Misbah thought of the mountains in the city of Quetta, where her family lived temporarily for her father’s job. Toufiq and Misbah came to the US after Toufiq’s parents died. He no longer had any family in Pakistan, so this was a fresh start for them. Upon seeing their motel, Misbah was filled with excitement. In the middle of the night, she thought of the name they would give their new business: the Clouds’ Rest Inn Motel.

In the present day, once Noor leaves to go home, Salahudin enters his family apartment to find Imam Shafiq and Abu. Sal convinces Abu to shower when Imam Shafiq announces he brought karahi to eat. Khadija cannot join them; she works long hours as a criminal defense attorney and has to leave unexpectedly. Shafiq and Salahudin talk as they heat the meal and wait for Abu to get out of the shower, and Shafiq asks about Noor’s uncle, questioning directly, “Do you know if Riaz has ever hit Noor?” (180). At first, Salahudin is shocked at the question, but then scenes with Noor come rushing to his mind—the secrets she won’t tell him, how she jumped when he bumped into her recently, and the makeup she’s been randomly wearing. He suddenly realizes that the Imam’s question is not unthinkable; he promises to talk to Noor gently and try to get the truth from her. The Imam has to leave when Khadija returns, and Salahudin expresses embarrassment for his dad. However, Shafiq doesn’t judge him, saying, “This life is jihad—struggle” (181). Abu returns, and he and Sal eat together. Abu unexpectedly shares a memory with Salahudin, telling him about moving in with his aunt and cousins when he was young since his mother had a drinking problem. While living there, his cousin got tetanus and died. Abu expresses regret that he could not save his cousin or mother. After recounting the memory, Abu reaches for alcohol.