Summary

Riham follows her to-do list every day and does her exercises in the morning. She revels in the quiet process and the routine of it all. The house she shares with her husband, Latif has been growing since their marriage, with new rooms being added every now and then. Riham compares this growth to that of a garden, and it delights her to see new spaces blossoming. The one room she does not feel an attachment to is “the Fixture” (177), a shed in which Latif cleaned and stitched up wounds and treated the ill during the war for no charge. At first, Riham was proud of her husband’s charitable work but soon she became annoyed by it, wanting her house and her husband for herself. She keeps this shameful secret to herself, and she was relieved when people stopped coming for...