Our Cut of Salt

by Deena Helm · 2026

When the Nakba forced Nuhad out of her Haifa home, the house became a silent, haunted witness to a family's loss. Decades later, her granddaughter Marina, raised far from her roots, is determined to step inside the walls that have haunted her grandmother’s memories. Accompanied by her mother Haifa—named for the very city they lost—Marina confronts a house that refuses to be forgotten: cats shun its perimeter, strange noises echo through empty rooms, and the very air seems to choke with the past. As the three generations converge within those crumbling rooms, long‑buried secrets surface, and the house’s lingering grief threatens to drown them all. Deana Helm weaves a lyrical, unsettling tale of displacement, memory, and the fierce pull of home, turning a classic haunted‑house narrative into a powerful meditation on the lingering trauma of occupation and the resilience that binds a family across time.