“Okay, but not in front of people. Let’s eat first,” Jehad said.

We had just cleared the meal and were enjoying tea when we heard a knock at the door. In walked my two paternal aunts who had previously wanted little to do with us, who had made every excuse not to take in Sitti Wasfiyeh. They came with baskets of fruit to welcome me home, kissed my cheeks as if we were one big happy family. I was too stunned to protest, and only later thought of better ways I could have reacted. I could at least have asked them what they were doing in our house. My mother rolled her eyes and twisted her lips in my direction, but mostly she played along with the charade, serving them tea and sweets.

Jehad leaned into my ear. “That’s the news,” he whispered. Even the neighbors seemed disgusted, and politely took their leave, but not without sharing knowing glances with my mother.

Sitti Wasfiyeh, on the other hand, was positively elated, smiling unceasingly. When they left, she said to no one in particular, “They wanted me to stay with them tonight, but I said I’d rather be here, because I didn’t want them to start fighting over which of their homes I go to. I said I want to spend time with my granddaughter tonight.” My mother, brother, and I exchanged looks, and as soon as we were out of Sitti’s earshot, I finally got the “news.”

About a month prior, a man had come in search of Sitti Wasfiyeh to talk about her share of an inheritance in thirty dunums of land in Ein el-Sultan. My grandmother’s village, the oldest town in the world, was being considered as a World Heritage Site, and a team of Palestinian and international archaeologists were seeking permission to create a dig on land that had belonged to her father. Years ago it had been arable farmland, but Israel’s siphoning of water had left it nearly barren. It was in Area A, which was under the Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction. A few Palestinian families had bribed their way to build homes on the land, and now had to pay sizable amounts of money to my grandmother and her siblings’ heirs for rent and restitution. Universities and institutions funding the excavations were also paying a lot of money for the rights to dig. There was talk of the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Antiquities wanting to buy the property.

“Subhan Allah!” Mama twisted her face to underscore her sarcasm. “How money has softened the hearts of your aunts!”

“How much are we talking about?” I asked.

“I’m not sure overall. But the immediate restitution from the families who built homes without paying rent or buying is a quarter of a million dinars!”