The Last Thursday

Ninety stolen pounds are stitched into the lining of Laila Nassar's coat when she steps off the Cairo train into Alexandria in 1951, calling herself a widow because the truth would send her back to a husband who broke her wrist twice. At the Pension Christou she finds a bed, a night job, and six women who climb to the roof on the last Thursday of every month to pool their savings and speak one true thing. Then the tin disappears — and only the seven of them knew where it was hidden.