After a few days catching up with friends, the charms of homecoming tapered off and boredom set in. Sitti Wasfiyeh’s inheritance and stories of women at the crisis center dominated conversations at home. I got a job as a cashier at a supermarket in Amman, but the pay was barely enough to cover transportation to and from work. Life in Amman had no substance. Everything and everyone looked the same to me. Every day was a copy of the one before. I went back to threading eyebrows and styling hair on the side. The emptiness of my days was accentuated by the purposeful life my mother was leading. I tried spending more time with my brother at his apartment, but he had a full, busy life. When he wasn’t gardening or managing Sitti Wasfiyeh’s newfound fortune, he was hitting away at his keyboard, all manner of indecipherable code scrolling on his computer monitors. It was an impressive sight, and it underscored how much our paths had diverged from our beginnings together playing in the streets of Kuwait. The family I knew and loved had been transformed nearly overnight. I found myself a source of joylessness in their midst, dissatisfied with everything around me.

I complained about the grocery stores: “There’s so much packaged crap and not enough fresh produce,” I said to my mother, holding up a box of a strange pasta. “What is macaroni and cheese? How do you put cheese in a box unrefrigerated?” I complained about the weather: “How can it be so cold here and so hot just a few miles east in Kuwait?” Jehad thought that was a real question and began a science lesson. I complained about the water: “It’s making my hair dull”; about the taxis: “They’re all cheats”; and, of course, about my aunts: “Why are those two-faced bitches in our house so much?”

“Nahr, don’t be so negative,” my brother finally reproached me when I suggested, for the millionth time, that my opportunistic aunts were trying to steal Sitti Wasfiyeh’s money. “Look how happy our grandmother is. What difference does it make why they visit? They don’t have control of her money. Our grandmother is no fool. She’s leaving plenty for her daughters and our cousins too. But don’t think she doesn’t love us,” he said.

It turned out Sitti Wasfiyeh was secretly building a home in the Sweifiyeh neighborhood in Amman for my mother. “And for you too, Nahr,” Jehad said. Our mother didn’t know. How nice the surprise will be, I thought.