They both become sorrowful when their first child died ten minutes after birth. Edgar never really shows his sorrow but hides it inside. It shows us when he leaves her in bed with an "I'm sorry- and goes to an Indian bar because he "wants to be with his people."" Susan's reaction to losing the child is also one of sorrow but hers is obvious to Edgar and to others as evidenced by the private eye's investigation, because he found "only evidence of her grief, crying jags in public restrooms, aimless wandering in the children's departments of Nordstrom's and the Bon Marche, and visits to a therapist's I've never heard about."" She loses all her happiness which is shown because "her blue eye held no more light in it than her dead eye."" She was so unhappy she had no light in her eyes. The sorrow is not really resolved in this story because it ends with him saying "I was gone but now I'm back- which leads us to believe he's happier now than he was before because he's back to liking who he is instead of wanting to be with "his people."".
In The Answer Is No the woman is sorrowful because she can never get married and have children, at least in her eyes. She is sorrowful because Badran stole something from her that she can never get back her innocence. When she was 13, close to 14 he basically rapes her. She is so innocent and nave that she does not even know what happened which is shown because "she had asked in terror about what had occurred."" He took her innocence from her that day and it happened "without love or desire on her part- with "a man she regarded as a second father."" This made her sorrowful because her choices now are to either marry him or remain singles the rest of her life. She chooses to remain single but she's now scared. "She avoids love, fears it. With all her strength she hopes that life will pass calmly, peacefully, rather than happily."" She has sorrow because she cannot marry, and hopes life will just pass by quickly regardless of if she has happiness or not.