“No thank you. I’m not hungry.”

“Here, Deepa squeezed some fresh orange and ginger for you. Drink it. And take these two Panadols for your headache.”

I sipped the juice, my hair still wet.

“It all worked out better than I expected,” Um Buraq said, scooping up a fistful of golden rice. “Fetch me that over there.” She pointed at a fat blue envelope bound with a rubber band.

“I don’t work for you. Get your own envelope,” I said.

“Well, it’s for you. But I’m happy to keep it if you want,” she said without looking up from her food.

I reached slightly with my functional arm, but even that movement was painful.

“Open it,” she said.

I winced, barely able to move.

“I’ll do it.” She took the envelope, licked the rice from her fingers, pulled out a stack of notes and counted two thousand dinars with her greasy fingers, then put it all back and gave it to me.

“They felt bad and gave us some money for the trouble that boy caused,” she said. Those men had paid her five hundred dinars for me, then gave her five thousand for the damage the nephew did. I wanted to give the money back and never see this woman again. But I made three hundred dinars a month working full-time, and here she was offering me two thousand.

“Where’s the rest?” I asked.

She almost choked on her food.

“Why are you keeping three thousand five hundred dinars?” I persisted, faking courage.

“That’s the deal,” she said, taking another bite without looking at me.

“There’s no deal,” I said, trying to harden my voice and stifle the pain.

She smiled, her large lips stretching nearly to the ends of her face, a piece of parsley stuck to her teeth and the vulgar gap between them mocking me. “I like you,” she said, and reaching her greasy hands into her bosom, pulled out a cloth purse full of large banknotes. She counted one thousand dinars and pushed them to me. I didn’t pick them up, continuing to stare at her, at that gap. The smile faded. She counted another five hundred, and that was it. “Fair is fair. I have to eat too. Now go get dressed. Ajay will drive you home.”

I took the money and left, hoping never to see her again.

I made up a tale about twisting my arm, until I needed Mama’s help getting dressed for work one morning and she saw my bandage. She insisted I show the wound and tell her what had really happened.

“Mama. It’s not a big deal,” I tried to dissuade her. But she wouldn’t let up. “I fell down the steps at Um Buraq’s house and landed on a piece of the glass that had been in my hand. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you worrying.”

“You should be more careful. Lucky you didn’t break your neck,” she sighed. Sitti Wasfiyeh added, “That’s what happens when you don’t watch where you’re going. I keep telling you to watch where you’re going. No one listens to me. You’re clumsy and don’t listen to your elders.”