His mother stepped carefully over one of his younger brothers, and then another, bending low to Abdul’s ear. “Wake up, fool!” she said exuberantly. “You think your work is dreaming?” Superstitious, Zehrunisa had noticed that some of the family’s most profitable days occurred after she had showered abuses on her eldest son. January’s income being pivotal to the Husains’ latest plan of escape from Annawadi, she had decided to make the curses routine.
