The sun hadn't even begun to peek over the jagged horizon of the village of Al-Nur when the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of a wooden pestle began. In the small, lime-washed cottage at the edge of the olive groves, the three sisters were already awake.
In this house, love wasn't just a feeling; it was a form of labor. It was written in the calluses on their palms and the shared exhaustion at the end of every day.
At twenty-four, Jannat was the gravity that held their world together. Since their parents had passed years prior, she had stepped into a role that was part mother, part commander, and entirely selfless. Jannat was tall, with eyes that seemed to have seen a century's worth of winters, though her smile remained as warm as the hearth she tended.
Her "head work" was the most grueling—the invisible labor of management. She tracked the grain prices in the neighboring town, calculated the lifespan of their winter woodpile, and negotiated with the merchants who tried to lowball them because they were "just three girls."
Then there were the twins, Amina and Aysha. At nineteen, they were two sides of the same coin, though they would argue that point until they were blue in the face.
Amina was the artisan. She had a mind for mechanics and soil. She knew exactly when the irrigation ditches needed clearing and how to fix a broken plow with nothing but wire and willpower.
Aysha was the weaver. Her fingers moved like lightning across the loom, creating intricate patterns that were the family's primary source of income. She had the "head work" of design—calculating thread counts and color symmetries that made her rugs the most sought-after in the valley.