Evil Eye: A Novel

Silas texts an apology to Yara for bringing up her mother the way he did, and he raises the possibility of her going to therapy with someone who isn’t William. Yara tells him that he has nothing to be sorry for and that she is grateful to have him as a friend. Yara’s daughters notice that she is sad, and she vows to find another therapist. She does not want to pass on her sadness to them, so she starts looking for a therapist who specializes in “whole-person” treatment. 

Yara immediately likes and feels comfortable with her new therapist, Esther. She is able to openly describe her childhood. She talks about how her father beat her mother, about how worthless she’s always felt, and about how much more freedom her brothers had. She notes that she’s been particularly upset for the last few months and realizes that it probably started the previous summer, when her mother died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. She also describes the emotional abuse to which her mother subjected her. Esther explains the concept of generational trauma to Yara and tells her that she thinks that Yara’s mother had unresolved trauma from her youth in Palestine that she passed down to her children.