As in most cities, what we now call “gentrification” took over and Aleppo’s wealthy residents, on the lookout for less-crowded localities, were quick to move into the area around my husband’s home. The school nearest their house filled up with the children of very wealthy families, and he stuck out among them like a sore thumb. The class differences crushed him. He remembers his mother saying to him: “The houses will creep toward us until the time comes when we are pushed out with nowhere to go but the street.” To this day, whenever he sees a homeless person he hides his face in his hands so as not to imagine himself in his place.