by Aisha Saeed
“I’m driving no slower and no faster than I ever do,” he replied.
“But a little faster wouldn’t hurt anyone! Please?”
“You’re going to pay the cost to fix this car if something happens to it?” He laughed.
“Ghulam Baba,” I pleaded. “Just this once?”
He shook his head, but he glanced at me in the rearview mirror and winked. The engine hummed louder, and the scenery passed faster now. Soon, my neighborhood sprang into view. Water buffalo roamed the distant fields. A group of boys kicked a faded soccer ball in the street. The car jerked to a stop. Children pointed at it and blocked its path.
I pushed the door open.
Ghulam rolled down his window.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “It’s just one block over!”
“I can’t wait!” I shouted. “Thanks for the ride!” I broke into a run down the road. There it was. The rosebushes. The worn front door creaked when I opened it, like always.
As I stepped inside, it felt like the past few months had been a terrible nightmare. And now it was over.
I was home.
Safa and Rabia stood by the couch; they were so engrossed in their argument, they didn’t see me at first. I took in their flushed cheeks and hands on their hips as their complaints echoed off the concrete walls.
Seema peeled a cucumber by the stove. She turned to hush them. That’s when she saw me. She gasped. Her knife clattered to the ground.
“Amal!” she shouted. She rushed toward me and wrapped me in a hug. I had forgotten what it was like to feel someone’s embrace.
“Baji’s here!” Rabia and Safa shrieked in unison. Their eyes lit up like a string of lights on Eid. They dashed toward me. I picked them both up and hugged them. I didn’t know how I would ever let go.
“Amal?”
My mother. She carried my little sister Lubna in her arms. Her hair was loose and damp, grayer than it had been three months earlier. She walked toward me and stroked my hair as if checking to make sure I was real. Then, her expression crumbled. She folded me into her arms.
“They said I could come for a few days.” I hugged her. “For the wedding. I can’t believe I’m home right now!”
“I called you. Every day. The phone rang without answer, and then one day it stopped ringing altogether. Had to wait the longest time before I could get word you were all right.” She wiped tears from her eyes.
“He took my phone. The first day. I’ve been desperate to talk to you. To all of you.”
“Seema, get your father,” my mother said. “Amal, sit here. Let me get a good look at you.”
Despite the exhaustion lining her face, she looked like my mother again.
“Our dolls missed you,” Rabia said, holding out her patchwork doll to me. Safa hurried over with hers as well. They talked over each other, sharing all the adventures I missed. I marveled at Safa’s words, the first time I’d heard her speak so clearly. Lubna was a plump baby now, with soft curls like Safa’s and Rabia’s. I held out my hands to pick her up, but she pulled back, studying me shyly from my mother’s arms. She had no memories of gripping my hand and looking into my eyes all those hours when she was a newborn. I was not an older sister to her. I was a stranger.
“How are you doing there? In that house?” my mother asked.
I fidgeted in my seat. I waited so long to come here. To let go of everything weighing on my heart. But the thing was, she looked so happy to see me. After everything I put her through, how could I add more burdens on her back?
“Nasreen Baji treats me well,” I managed to say. “I’m lucky I work for her.”
“Good.” She exhaled. “I know it’s not easy, but I know how strong you are.”
Strong? What did it mean to be strong? Did I have any other choice?
Before I could say anything more on this, the front door opened.
My father stepped inside. He walked straight over to me and hugged me, his face wet with tears. With his arms around me, for the first time since I came home, I cried.
The room grew quiet when I pulled away.
“I’m sorry.” I wiped my eyes.
“Don’t be,” my mother said. “You are free here.”
The door opened again. “I thought my ears were playing tricks on me.”
Parvin! I raced over to hug her.
“Where is Omar?”
“Oh, Amal.” She winced. “He’s at orientation this weekend.”
“Orientation?”
“Yes, for the boarding school, remember?”
I remembered now. Our conversation by the stream. It felt like a lifetime ago now.
“He starts in the fall, and they wanted the new students to come spend the weekend there to get acquainted. He’s going to be so upset he missed your visit.”
“I’m so glad things are moving along with that,” I told her.
And I was. If my own future had to be yanked away, at least Omar had one.
* * *
• • •
We ate dinner in the courtyard that night. I fixed myself a plate of kardhai chicken and the fresh wheat roti my mother had made minutes earlier. I had no idea how badly I missed my mother’s food until I took a bite; Hamid was a good cook, but there was nothing in the world that could compare to my mother’s food.
“Did you know I’m learning to read?” Rabia told me.
“Seema’s teaching her.” My mother nodded. “She’ll start school in a few weeks.”
“When can I start?” Safa frowned.
“When you can behave!” Rabia stuck out her tongue.
Seema interceded to cut off their argument. My mother grabbed Safa and put her in her lap.
When the conversation turned to the preparations for Hafsa’s sister’s wedding, everyone started talking at once, and I found it difficult to focus. I felt overwhelmed by the laughter, chatter, and squeals of my sisters—the sounds that I had missed so much. I tried to still myself and soak it all in, to hold on to when I was gone.
I used to complain to Omar about my chaotic home. I took any opportunity to escape to the sugarcane fields when the noise became too much. Why did I get so annoyed at the sound of my sisters’ chatter? Why did I get frustrated with my chores? Why did it take leaving my ordinary life behind to appreciate how precious it truly was?
“Okay, girls,” my mother said when the last of the rotis vanished from the hot pot. “Seema, watch the baby while I get the girls ready for bed?”
“I can do it,” I said.
“Nonsense. You’re our guest here for a short while. Relax.”
Guest?
It was just an offhand remark.
They meant it kindly.
But to call me a guest in the only place I ever belonged—the word cut like a jagged stone against my heart.
Chapter 33
I helped Safa and Rabia put on their matching yellow frocks for the mehndi. Tonight was the first of the wedding festivities, and it was my favorite day because unlike the actual wedding ceremony tomorrow, which could be a bit somber, the mehndi was a happy celebration where everyone danced, sang, and decorated each other’s hands and feet with henna.
“Thanks for getting the girls dressed,” my mother said as she stepped into our room. “Here are your outfits.” She handed Seema and me our freshly pressed clothes.
I put on the orange silk kamiz and green churidar pajamas that I’d worn to my cousin’s wedding late last year. After so long wearing simple cotton, this fabric felt smooth and light against my skin.
“You look pretty,” Seema said. “Orange always looks good on you.”
“So do you,” I told her. “I don’t remember your outfit. Did Amma have it dyed a different color from when it was mine?”
“No. This outfit is new!” She grinned. “The tailor measured
me twice to make sure it fit just right!”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. I was glad Seema got to wear an outfit that was all her own, but knowing the reason why—because she had replaced me as the eldest in my family—saddened me, too.
Our conversation was interrupted by a knock on the front door.
“Amal!”
I knew the voice before I turned around. It was Hafsa!
“You’re back!” She hugged me. “I just heard. I knew your father would come up with the money! I knew he would!”
“I’m only here for the weekend,” I said.
“Oh.” Her smile faded.
Hafsa grew quiet and glanced at Seema and then back at me.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” she finally said. “How’ve you been?”
“It’s been hard, but I’m managing,” I said.
“Oh,” she said.
There it was again, that unfamiliar silence. I waited for her to ask me about the estate. About Jawad Sahib and what it was like to live there. Here I was with all the firsthand information she could ever dream of, but instead, the quiet continued to stretch between us while she studied the ground.
I cleared my throat. “How’s Miss Sadia?”
“She’s good!” Hafsa perked up. “But she still goes over our class time.”
“Yeah.” Seema nodded. “Some things don’t change. Especially around here.”
“Well, except for that building, right?” Hafsa said to Seema. She turned to me. “It opens next week. We were all wrong, weren’t we?”
“What building?”
“The one with the green door,” she said. “I was right—Khan Sahib’s family was building it, but it wasn’t a factory. It’s a literacy center.”
So the center Nasreen Baji had bragged about to her friend was the mysterious building we watched go up. And it was in my own village.
“No one’s going to go,” Hafsa said. “They don’t want to touch anything that family is involved with.”
“But it’s free, isn’t it?” I said.
“Nothing with him is free,” Hafsa said. “You of all people know that.”
“Hafsa?” my mother said as she walked into the room. “Your mom just called. She was looking for you.”
“Oops,” she said. “I better go. Get there on time, okay? Farah and I are going to do a dance!”
Before I could respond, she raced out the door.
How quickly her life had moved on.
While I scraped plates and massaged migraines, she practiced dance steps with our classmate Farah. They got to go to school and dream about a future. I knew Hafsa missed me and cared about me, but she got to barrel forward, her life uninterrupted, while my future had fallen completely off its tracks.
Would Farah be Hafsa’s roommate someday?
Chapter 34
Pink, green, and yellow lights illuminated the tent Hafsa’s parents erected behind their home for the mehndi.
I stepped onto the carpeted floor of the tent with my family. My father wandered over to the folding chairs set up outside the tent for the men under the night sky. Rabia and Safa held tight to my kamiz as if I might vanish without warning.
The bride, Hafsa’s eldest sister, Shabnum, sat perched on a cushioned stage in the center of the tent. A yellow veil framed her face, and her hands were already covered with henna patterns. Now the henna artist was swirling intricate designs of flowers and birds onto her feet.
We walked over to sit on the cushions below Shabnum’s stage. I smiled a little at how subdued she seemed. Hafsa and her sisters were not the docile sort, but the bride was doing her best to look the part for the occasion.
Seema picked up a henna cone left out for the guests to use and began swirling it on my hand.
“Are you done?” I asked her after a while. “My hand is aching!”
“Be patient. I have to get the pattern right! You squirm too much.”
“Sorry.” I tried to still myself. The designs on my palms would take hours to dry, but tomorrow the deep brown Seema painted on would transform into a brilliant orange. It would eventually fade away completely, but for a little while, when I was back at Jawad Sahib’s estate, these hands would remain colored with the memory of this night.
A new song started up, and I watched Hafsa and Farah dance with a third girl. It was Sana—Nasreen Baji’s niece. Their braids were woven with marigolds, and they wore matching outfits.
Chatter swirled around me. Gossip about the groom. The dowry.
“You poor dear,” a woman said to me. It was Hira, the butcher’s wife. She settled next to me and tucked her feet under herself. “Everyone is beside themselves about you having to live in the same place as that monster.”
“What’s it like there?” another woman asked. “Drove by the place once, but you can’t even see the roof from the road.”
“It’s those walls he’s got,” my neighbor Balkis interjected. “Walls and bushes to keep everyone far away.”
“Does he have a waterfall in the house?” Hira asked me.
“No, there’s no waterfall,” I said.
“I knew a woman who worked for them years ago. Told me about a waterfall right in their living room.”
“Heard about the gold staircases, too.” Balkis nodded.
“Now, that Nasreen . . .” Hira clucked her tongue. “Came from the village over on the other side of the market but thinks she’s something else now. Doesn’t even bother to see her family anymore.”
“She’s nice,” I interrupted. “She’s been good to me. She really has.”
But they continued their conversation as though I hadn’t spoken. I watched their animated expressions and listened to the theories of Nasreen Baji’s past and the details of the estate.
Seema squeezed my wrist. “Ignore them,” she said. “They’re just gossiping.”
She was right. For these women, my circumstances were a juicy story. One they could whisper about and cluck their tongues over before moving on to other things.
They didn’t have to tiptoe around Jawad Sahib.
They didn’t have to be wrenched away from everyone they loved.
They weren’t bad people. They were just lucky enough to have no idea of the reality I faced.
Chapter 35
Ghulam would be here to pick me up any minute. As I packed boxes of my favorite biscuits into my suitcase for Fatima and the others, there was a knock on the door. Seema went to open it, but instead of Ghulam, it was Fozia.
“I brought these for you,” Fozia said. She stepped inside with a box of yellow laddus. She set it on the table.
“Thank you. I’ve missed your sweets,” I said.
“Seema,” my mother said, “can you get a plate for them?”
“No, no, they’re for Amal. I know how much she loves them,” Fozia said. “I came to say goodbye, and I had a question.” She hesitated. “I heard you work for Nasreen. Do you think if you talked to her about something, she might listen?”
“Why?” I asked her. “What happened?”
Fozia shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“Tell me, please.” I grabbed her hands. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s ever since we replaced that roof. And then we needed a little more to fix our freezer. And then there was the wedding. We’re paying as much as we can each month, but when his officer came to collect last time, he said if we don’t increase our payments soon, he’ll take drastic measures. But we can’t pay any more than we already are. We can’t!”
“Fozia,” my mother said. “Amal is a servant in their home. What power do you think she has? Look how indebted we are.”
There was the sound of a car pulling up, and the back door creaked open. Seema rushed into the living room as my father stepped inside. “Ghula
m is outside, but he said you could take your time.”
Fozia stood. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” She looked at my mother and me. “Except if there was a chance, I had to ask.”
“I know.” My mother hugged her.
I blinked back tears after Fozia left. “I wish I could help her.”
“Amal, even if you could help them, imagine who else will come to you for the same,” my mother said. She put her arm around me.
It was then I noticed her arms were bare.
“Where are your gold bangles?” I asked.
My mother glanced at my father.
“She sold them,” he said.
But those bangles were as much a part of my mother as her long wavy hair. I couldn’t remember a moment she didn’t have them on.
“It’s the first thing we did when you left,” Seema said. “We were sure we could work something out, but even with her wedding jewelry, the tractor, the television . . . Even if we sold them all, it wouldn’t be enough. Not even close.”
I looked at my mother, at my sisters. Seema’s arms were crossed, her face ashen. They had tried everything they could think of to get me back and failed. So if they were continuing with their lives, it was because they had no other choice. Just like me.
“I’m not leaving that place, am I?” I whispered to my father.
I waited for him to answer my question. Instead, he hugged me tight.
I hugged the rest of my family goodbye. My mother. My sisters. I kissed the baby. She smiled at me and cooed, but I knew I would soon be a stranger to her again.
I thought coming home would help me feel better, but now all I could see was my mother’s bare wrists, Fozia’s frightened face, and a baby sister who would never know me. How many lives had this man upended?
Why did no one stop him?
Chapter 36
It felt strange to be back at the Khan estate. The marble tiles, immaculate white hallways, and enormous windows devoid of dust or fingerprints—none of this was foreign anymore.
