A few days later, I was squatting in the garden pulling the weeds from around a limp tomato plant when she came up to me, looking as though she might explode.

“As-salaamu alaykum.”

“Alaykum as-salaam.”

“Um Radwan, I just came from the pharmacy and Um Khalid was there. Do you know she likes to be called Um Lubna now?”

“So now you believe me.”

“She has changed so much. It was just as you said and she wore a roza covered with embroidery. You should have seen her chatting with the other women. They looked like schoolgirls. She is becoming the same cheerful woman she used to be before all of her tragedies.”

“Why should you have doubted me?”

“Oh, Um Radwan, I’m sorry,” she said, her fat finger darting underneath her scarf. “We’ve seen her so gloomy for so long, it seemed an impossible change. It made me very happy to see her like that. Thank God she has finally stopped mourning. Maybe Lubna will come back to normal now too.” She paused and looked at my garden. Then, instead of lingering to chat as she usually does, she turned to go. “See you later, Um Radwan,” she said and walked back toward her house.

“Just you wait,” I said, though she was already out of earshot. “Um Lubna is up to something. Mark my words.” And surely you are not stupid enough to believe that there is hope for that poor daughter of hers.

Not long after this, the changes in Um Lubna became obvious to everyone. She was seen more and more often around the village in outrageous rozas (purple and gold, pink and gray) tight around her belly with a bra underneath to keep her breasts from sagging, and she would be walking with gaiety in her step. She wrapped her hair in bright-colored scarves and secured them with strings of gold or silver coins. Most striking was that when she stopped and chatted with anyone, it was as though the twelve years of silence had not taken her words away but had only dammed them up so that now they gushed out of control, soaking whomever she spoke with.

“Does she think she is a bride?” I said to Abu Khuder as I saw her leaving his stand a few months later.

“Shame on you, Um Radwan. She has mourned for twelve years. Is it so awful that she should try happiness now?”

“There are plenty of happy women who don’t feel obliged to press their breasts inside a tight dress and wrap their heads in gold or silver. Who ever heard of going to buy vegetables with your head wrapped in coins like that?”

“But Um Radwan . ..”