Chapter Four

Months pass by and there seems to be little hope, Sarah is attempting to find work while studying, tuition fees were paid till the end of her first semester, but she is uncertain how she will afford her last semester of school. Nour's English degree amounts to nothing more than a part time job translating an Arabic website into English. Her lack of skills and experience make it difficult to predict where she will go, and there is nobody supporting the family other than the dreamer.

The cost of the apartment and the cost of eating for three people all but consume Nour's 700$ monthly salary and Sarah is reluctant to find a job teaching as she is unwilling to give up completing her Master's. Nai is lost in her misery, unable to realize what she should do, or how to do it, she stumbles around the new apartment they are renting counting the left over cash from the car and house they loved and sold.

These are the darkest months of their lives, the room's bleakness reflects no more than shadows of their silhouettes, as if their reality has all but vanished leaving a bedraggled phantom of themselves. No one dreams, or cooks, or calculates anymore, they simply try to crawl towards some light that they feel doesn't exist.

It is in this state of mind that Nour meets her dream. His name is Ibrahim, and he is the exact replica of the man who saves her from freedom. He is a graduate student, studying to become a doctor of medicine at AUB and she is at AUB's lower campus attempting to apply for work as one of their magazine editors.

A second part time job Nour feels will secure her family. She has taken it upon herself to be their knight in shining armor. She knows that her sister's ambitions and future prospects are all but dependent upon a Master's degree, and she knows that if her sister achieves it they will be better off, so she places aside all her dreams and books, all her quite thoughts, to allow for Sarah's screams to continue.

And Nour knows she needs to help her mother through this time, but is unwilling to talk or look her in the face. Her mother has spent the last three days feeling for the first time like a true failure. She always knew her husband felt she was his mistake that he didn't train her to be a proper housewife, but never did she feel like a true failure because she knew she had two daughters that loved her, respected her, and lead happy lives, relatively. For the first time in her life she would look at her daughters worn out feet in shame as they were walking distances they use to drive. Their hunger for more made her turn rock solid and the tears that fell to the ground made large thud sounds that Nour couldn't bear to see or hear, she knew her mother needed her, but she didn't have it in her to be sympathetic. Nour caved, became a machine, a spiritless body of flesh.

And this is how Ibrahim met her.