At my father’s house, Aisha didn’t cook. She spent all her time at the store. My grandmother on my father’s side was in charge of the cooking. She would send up food from her house on the first floor to our house on the second floor. While this was going on, Aisha stayed in the store on the bottom floor of the building, smelling all the aromas emanating from her mother-in-law’s kitchen, and guessing what she was cooking. This was all because communication between the two women was virtually nonexistent.
During my first years of life, Aisha kept me with her at the store. It was damp and musty because the only source of light or air was the doorway. She wouldn’t close the door in the cold of winter to avoid the darkness, which is why I got sick a lot. She didn’t make any effort to treat my
