CHAPTER 1 

Tayta had just finished explaining it to me for the three thousandth time. How I came to be cursed. My grandmother swears it was her cousin’s first wife; she even saw her put the evil eye on me. Apparently, Tayta’s cousin’s first wife was reproductively challenged and crazy-jealous that another baby was being born into the family. Tayta blames my mother. She says she’ll never forgive Mum for allowing visitors into our home during the first twelve months of my life – a critical time for evil-eye cursing, apparently.

‘She should keep you away from everybody for more than one year!’ she exclaims in her thick accent, waving one wrinkled hand over her sweaty forehead while she expertly stirs a pot full of bubbling red sauce with the other. ‘I tell my cousin, I tell him she was no good! But, look what happens.’

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