Chapter 6

“The man told her that she had a secret enemy within her house. My mother just couldn’t think of who it was. She thought of all the possible aspects, but she couldn’t come up with anything. He told her to go home, that she would find the answer soon enough.

My mother, in both doubt and confusion, went home. This was because before she gave birth to my sister, the only person who knew our apartment was her only surviving sibling, her brother. Her mother had given birth to six other kids apart from her, but as bitter as life was, she lost all of them, except one, to death.

They were five girls and a boy. The others had died, leaving just her and her younger brother. Her only brother had been lousing about before my father brought him to the house some years before the birth of my sister, then prepared my uncle’s papers, and he traveled out of the country in search of greener pastures. This was what was troubling her. She couldn’t believe her brother was responsible for h