“I almost forgot to get zucchini. If you tried my stuffed zucchini, Abu Khuder, you would see that it’s the best in the village.”

I turned to look, not recognizing the voice, and while I couldn’t see her face, from the back she looked like Um Khalid, except of course for those colorful strips on her dress. Finally she left and I went to Abu Khuder and gave him my vegetables to weigh.

“Was that Um Khalid?”

“Yes,” said Abu Khuder as he put the eggplants on the scale. “She prefers to be called Um Lubna now.”

“Why on earth would she want to be called Um Lubna? To be reminded of that horrible creature she brought into this miserable world?”

“Shame on you, Um Radwan. She says it makes her too sad to always remember her sons, may God have mercy on them; that she’d rather be attached to the living than the dead.”

Imagine severing your son’s name from you! It is shameful. Nothing has changed. She is just as insolent as ever, causing any scandal she can, doing exactly as she pleases instead of doing what is right. It is just as well she didn’t marry Radwan or our family might have been carried away by her evil.

Seeing her got me to thinking about Radwan on my way home. He is my favorite son and is far away living in Los Angeles where they have a new disaster every time I turn on the television, but he is successful, a jeweler. A mother can be proud of a boy who owns his own store and lives in a house that overlooks the beach, even if he doesn’t bring her for a visit—but who would want to be troubled by such a journey anyway.

Home and up the eleven stairs built to cause me more pain than I already know.

“As-salaamu alaykum, Um Radwan.”

It is my neighbor who lives in the house behind mine. We chatted for a while, and just as I was about to continue, I thought of Um Khalid.

“Have you seen Um Khalid lately?”

She thought for a moment, sticking an obese finger beneath the blue scarf on her head to scratch her scalp. I’m sure she has lice.

“No, why?”

“I just saw her at Abu Khuder’s and she was talking with him like a young bride, telling him how she was going to cook him stuffed zucchini and how clever she is.”

“Shame on you, Um Radwan, for saying things like that when she has so many burdens to bear.”

“Swear to God. I’m not kidding. She was also wearing a roza covered with embroidery.”

“Surely you must have imagined it, Um Radwan.”

Talk about insolent. I continued up the stairs without another word. How dare she talk to me as though I were losing my mind.