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something that puzzles me to this day. These people had a large, beautiful home. They had an incredible indoor swimming pool and servants to take care of their every need. They had good food, beautiful clothes, and many fancy cars. But they were the unhappiest, most ungrateful people I have ever met. The Mom and The Dad were not happy with each other, and the kids had a huge sense of entitlement.
    How could they not see how privileged they were? How could they not see how lucky they were to live that kind of lifestyle? Why couldn’t they give thanks for their wonderful life or be appreciative of it? There are many things about my life then and the people in it that I did not understand. I probably never will.
    Once or twice, though, I got to briefly speak with my mother on the phone. The calls were set up by The Mom and were mostly to discuss the details of payment for me to my parents. While I believed I had been paying off my sister’s debt, as part of their deal with my parents The Mom and The Dad were paying them a small amount each month, the equivalent of seventeen US dollars. Later I learned that this arrangement was most likely a split—if, for example, my “employment” had earned me fifty dollars a month back in Egypt, The Mom and The Dad would have given my parents less, and the difference would have gone toward the debt my family owed. Every time I said, “Mom, I want to come home,” my mother replied, “You are almost done. It’s okay. You will be home soon.” But even then I knew these for the placating words they were.
    Plus, every time my mother and I spoke, either The Mom or The Dad listened in on another extension. Afterward, they’d yell at me. “You are a stupid girl,” one or the other would shout. “You should be grateful for the good life we give you.” It was like a broken record, or the movie Groundhog Day , where the same events take place over and over again.
    Nothing was going to change of its own accord. I knew it and knew that the adults knew it.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Life went on . . . and on. Day after day I waited on this family, took care of their every need, and cleaned their house. I took their verbal abuse and received more slaps than I care to count. I never had a day off, even when I did not feel well.
    Every month it seemed someone had a birthday, or there was a Muslim holiday. I was never invited to participate, nor were my own birthdays celebrated. When the twins had their second birthday celebration since I’d been in the house, I knew I had been there a long time.
    I had no knowledge of the calendar, of months or how years worked. Even though before I’d come to the home of my captors I had counted my age in years, I did not have a full concept of what that meant. Time was meaningless to me. Today was just a day—as was tomorrow.
    I was too tired to be resentful. Too tired to be mad that other children were celebrating milestones and I was not. When you are a slave, it does not take long for your emotions to shut down or for your mind to go into survival mode. That may be why my memories of some occasions are spotty or nonexistent. My brain was on overload trying to survive, and day-to-day details were not necessary to that process.
    But after I had been with my captors for a couple of years, I had the growing sense that this family had their own troubles. The Dad had been “away” a number of times for lengthy periods, and while nothing specific was said to me, I overheard conversations between family members or servants when they talked about him being in trouble with the law.
    “He’s coming home soon,” the cook commented one day.
    “ She wants a big to-do when he gets home,” added one of the maids.
    “That’ll be more work for us, mark my words,” said another.
    Just as some of the servants had predicted, when The Dad returned, there was a huge party. There were a lot of people at the party, so he must have had a lot of supporters.
    Then there was a day