Aunt Amra, who speaks no English at all, picked up the receiver and immediately dropped it in my lap, as if to say she had no interest whatsoever in communicating with her brother-in-law's family. Ever since I arrived here I've come to realize that she, more than anyone else in this house, resents that my parents did virtually nothing to help her or her children except for making an occasional, expensive international call. So now, when the phone rings, and she realizes it's my mother, she uses a beautifully choreographed gesture of disdain to reveal her real feelings.
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