Tears in the Dough, Stars in Their Eyes

The first light of dawn slipped through the torn curtain, painting golden cracks on the mud floor. Amina blinked against the light, her back aching from another night of sleep on the thin, flattened mattress. The baby stirred beside her, still wrapped in the faded blue shawl that had once been hers.

She sat up slowly, careful not to wake her children. Her husband, Kareem, was already gone—off to the construction site before the sun, as always. He never liked to leave without kissing their foreheads, but he also never wanted them to wake up to goodbye.

Amina moved to the corner of the room where the kitchen lived in spirit, if not in size. A metal pot, a cracked pan, and a small pile of firewood waited like silent companions. She opened the flour tin—barely enough for two rotis. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she reached for the salt.

As she mixed the dough, her fingers trembled—not from hunger, but from memory. She remembered her own mother, kneading dough with the same rhythm, the same silence, and the same tears she thought were unnoticed. But Amina had seen them. Just as her eldest daughter, Sana, now saw hers.

Sana was ten. She had a brightness about her that hadn’t yet dimmed, though Amina feared the world would try. The girl loved reading, even if her books were rescued from garbage heaps. She would wash them with care, smooth the torn pages, and read to her younger siblings like a teacher speaking to royalty.

“Ammi,” Sana whispered, suddenly standing at her elbow, “I’ll help.”

Amina smiled weakly, brushing flour across the child’s cheek. “You should sleep a little more.”

“I don’t feel sleepy when I smell roti,” Sana said, her eyes lingering on the dough. “It smells like home.”

Home. A one-room shack with a leaking roof and no electricity. But somehow, Sana made it sound like a palace.

They worked side by side, mother and daughter, in silence. Amina rolled the dough as Sana fed the fire. The smoke stung their eyes, but they didn’t complain. There were far worse things than smoke.

By the time the younger children woke, the tiny space was filled with warmth and the smell of cooking. Hashim, six, clutched his toy car—just a wooden block with bottle-cap wheels. He drove it around the floor with a hum of happiness.

Baby Noor clapped her hands, her laugh a melody that softened the morning.

They ate quietly—one roti divided into four pieces, with a little salt and a lot of love. Amina watched as Sana gave a bigger piece to Hashim, pretending she was already full. Hashim, in turn, gave half of his to Noor.

This was how they lived—on sharing, on sacrifice, on invisible threads of love that held their broken world together.

When Kareem returned in the evening, his face was dusty, and his steps heavy. But he still smiled. He always did when he saw them.

He pulled something from his shirt pocket and handed it to Sana—a pen.

It was cheap, the kind sold in street stalls. But Sana’s eyes widened like it was made of gold. “For your dreams,” he said.

Sana clutched it to her chest. “One day, I’ll write a book. You’ll see.”

Kareem’s throat tightened. “And I’ll build you a bookshelf.”

That night, they all lay close together, under the stars that peeked through the broken ceiling. The children fell asleep one by one, their breaths syncing in peace. Amina rested her head on Kareem’s shoulder.

“We have nothing,” she whispered.

“We have them,” he replied.

In the silence, she reached for his hand. Their fingers laced together, rough and worn, yet full of unspoken promises.

Somewhere above, a star blinked. Perhaps it, too, was watching. Perhaps it saw that even in the smallest, poorest home, a kind of light burned brighter than gold.