My arm slowly recovered as the wound in my back healed. I didn’t know what to do with the thirty-five hundred dinars I had tucked away in my safe, where I kept the gold shabka from my wedding, ten gold ingots remaining from the twenty Mama had bought in secret when Baba was alive, and a one-thousand-dinar college fund for Jehad, from the money Mhammad’s family gave me after he left, and which we kept dipping into to pay bills. It would not be enough to get Jehad through the door of most universities, but with this new stack of bills, I began to imagine that one day I could pay for him to have a good university education and become a rich doctor who would support us in turn. There was still a year and a half to come up with the rest.

Um Buraq left several messages at the house over the next two months, but I didn’t return her calls. Sabah thought I was still mad about whatever stupid argument we’d had, which I didn’t even remember. I didn’t answer or return her calls either. By sheer luck, my grandmother was having coffee with a neighbor one flight up when Um Buraq showed up at our apartment. I saw her through the peephole, pretended no one was home, and let her knock until she gave up and left. But I worried she’d return and provoke a scandal.

I got a second job as a retail clerk at a clothing store. My routine was: school clerk job, evening retail job, home, repeat. On weekends and free hours here and there, I took in customers for eyebrow threading. I was robotic, impervious to the memory of that terrible party. I liked being busy, exhausted, and numb. I didn’t want to think or feel until I had something worthwhile to show—maybe a savings account to help send my brother to college, or a good job that would bring me respect and social standing. In the quiet, hidden parts of me, I even dared to imagine getting a degree myself, or reciting poetry in public. But my exhausting determination alarmed my mother. “Look at you. What do you mean, you’re fine? You look like you’ve lost at least ten kilos,” she said.

I didn’t hear from Um Buraq again until she showed up at work, insisting I accept her invitation to talk before heading to my second job. At Juice King in Salmiya, we ordered two tall glasses of freshly squeezed juice cocktails delivered to her car, where I sat looking straight ahead.

“I should have told you more about the party. I’m sorry that I didn’t. I was only trying to help,” she said.

“I didn’t ask for your help. Why are you harassing me at my job?”

“I want to make you an offer.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

She sighed. “Look, just hear me out. I’m not a bad person. Women like us—”

“I’m not like you.”