Excerpt 3 The Good Wife

Hala went into the sitting room, the one saved for guests and never used by the family, the chairs that usually outgrew their owners and see more than one generation.  The rocking chair, her mother's, looked inviting with its soft crimson velvet fabric and the golden embroidered cushions on it,  but she was too restless to sit down. She was attracted by the patch of sunshine outside and went straight to the window to get a feeling of warmth that she desperately needed. She was faced with the neighbor's laundry hanging, neatly organized: small pieces on the front lines, followed by the bigger ones. The clothes looked whiter than any clothes she had ever washed or hanged; the type of radiant whitens that Hala believed was possible only in Ariel commercials.  How she envies that woman and admires her housekeeping skills, without even knowing her name. They talked only twice, once when their eyes met while both were busy hanging clothes and the second time when they met by the elevator and she took the opportunity to ask her about her maid. She has always wanted a maid to come once a week but for years, Salem did not agree, especially after the incident of the little servant they had when the twins were little. He does not trust strangers, he would simply announce and if she insisted he would proceed with the "the good wife" sermon. A good wife does this, a good wife does that and would go on forever and she would drop the subject and try to be a "good wife".