Gifts

"Will you marry me," he said
The question did not surprise her; she had expected it for quite some time. Nor did its timing disturb her. Rather, it was the way he spoke it, as though it were an ordinary request, as pedestrian as "Please pass the salt." Silent, like someone determined to set a hurt bone, Duniya reasoned that he must have worked on the question so thoroughly that he botched it.

-Gifts by Nuruddin Farah


Just a passage I liked from the book.