Award-winning journalist Dalal Mawad was in Lebanon when the blast happened, and was one of the first journalists to report on the mysterious and devastating explosion. Now, after years of reporting on the victims and on Lebanon itself, she sees it as one more stitch in the fabric of Lebanon’s painful history. The women in this book all experienced the explosion and suffered unimaginable loss and tragedy, but it is not just this one event that brings them together. Their personal stories converged to tell the story of a nation whose glory days are long gone, now riven by protracted violence, lurching from crisis to crisis, and fighting to survive.