by Hana Sheik
“We can turn back.”
Amal’s voice pierced the bleak fog painting his thoughts. She had a smile ready for him. Small but encouraging.
“Whatever you choose, Mansur. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this right now.”
“Why?” He grated the question. “Why is it important to you that I do this—now or tomorrow or ever?”
She stared at her lap, at her upturned palms that had closed into fists. “I’m grateful I had my grandmother. Without her, I don’t know who my brothers and I would be today. And you have Mama Halima. I know that. Your mother is wise, kind, and generous...”
He heard the “but”.
“But, knowing that my father didn’t want us...it hurt. It still hurts.” She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, her chest rising and falling with emotion.
Opening her eyes, she turned her head to him and he saw them. The tears shining in them, brighter under the LED lights above their heads in the headliner. Mansur resisted dimming the lights to hide her tears. He didn’t like seeing her crying. Never had and never would.
Her voice wavering with her despondence, she said, “I don’t want that for you. Zoya seems like a sweet and friendly person. If her family is anything like her, wouldn’t you want to meet them?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
What more did she want from him? He had nothing else to give.
She tipped her head up toward the car roof. “I want you to be happy,” she said. Then, sniffling, she opened the passenger door, stepped out, and shut the door behind her. He saw her pause before the restaurant, wipe her eyes, and then enter without a backward look.
Through the front glass of the restaurant he saw Zoya approaching Amal. Judging by Zoya’s smile, all was right as rain. But his half-sister did look around Amal when she pointed behind her. They had to be talking about him. Probably Zoya was wondering where he was, and whether he’d show his face as he had promised earlier, during their impromptu coffee date.
Manny sat back and watched as Amal disappeared from view with Zoya, who was leading her further into the restaurant, where he couldn’t spy on them from his car.
“I want you to be happy.”
Did she? Because if she did, wouldn’t she have accepted his proposal a year ago? Wouldn’t they be married and blissfully sharing a life together at this very moment?
Her amnesia couldn’t have changed her that much. Deep down, she still had to be the same person. The same Amal who believed family was irreplaceable and to be cherished no matter what. The Amal who had dreamt of improving the lives of her neighbors and Hargeisa’s citizens by building a new hospital with her architectural skills. The Amal who had inspired him to make risky moves that were normally unlike him. With her by his side he’d felt courageous. He’d felt unconquerable.
So far, all this week with her had done was remind him that nothing had changed for him.
Amal was still herself, and he was still the man who just wasn’t good enough for her.
* * *
“He was right behind me,” Amal insisted for the fourth time—or maybe it was the fifth time?
She had lost count after looking around the long table, up and down, at the strangers staring back at her. Mostly strangers. Zoya she knew, and her fiancé Salim she recognized from the flower shop. The others were Zoya’s two younger sisters and her mother—Mansur’s stepmother.
“I’ll look again.” Zoya stood and left the table.
Amal watched her leave and faced Zoya’s family. Mansur’s family. It wasn’t long before Zoya returned, her downcast eyes and her frown communicating what Amal suspected from the beginning might have happened. Mansur had left. He’d left her with his family.
She swallowed some of the iced water in her glass. Their plates were all empty, because they’d thought to wait for Mansur before starting dinner.
But he wasn’t here.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze tracking over the table, settling on each face before finding Zoya’s again. “I didn’t...”
She stopped short, feeling the heat of tears pushing from the back of her eyes. If she’d known Mansur would do this, she wouldn’t ever have allowed him to drive them here. It made her wonder if she even knew him. Who had she been traveling with this whole while?
A stranger, that was who. A complete and total stranger.
And if this is who he really is I should be glad he’s shown me what he’s capable of.
She couldn’t love a man willing to put his own pride over his family—and that was what it was to her: sheer pride. He was judging these good people solely for their connection to his father. It wasn’t the fault of Zoya and her sisters that they shared the same father as Mansur. They hadn’t chosen to have him as a half-brother. And yet they were trying to make the best of the situation. They were willing to bring him into their family.
“We could do this some other day?” Zoya suggested, looking pained and confused by Mansur’s absence. Everyone else appeared just as unsettled.
“No,” Amal said, looking around and stiffening her jaw. “No,” she repeated. “We’ll have dinner as planned, if that’s all right with you all.”
Zoya translated Amal’s English into Amharic for her mother, while her fiancé and her sisters understood and agreed to stay. Zoya’s mother smiled and nodded, giving her assent as best as she could with the language barrier.
By the time dinner was in full swing Amal would have liked to say she felt much better about her decision to stay and was stubbornly enjoying the dinner that Mansur had so rudely skipped out on. But she couldn’t help wondering if he was all right. If she’d pushed him into this for herself more than for him.
The last thing she’d told him was that she wanted him to be happy. And she did. But he hadn’t been happy about having this dinner, and he wouldn’t have chosen to do it if she hadn’t practically forced him into it.
The flavorsome Ethiopian cuisine went unnoticed as her mind got stuck on Mansur. Nobody but Zoya caught on.
The other woman leaned in and whispered, “Are you all right?”
She spoke in thickly accented Somali, and Zoya smiled at Amal’s blatant surprise. Amal didn’t need to ask who had taught Zoya the language. Her father, of course. But hearing the Somali made her think of Mansur even more. Made her long for her home, where she would be safe from having to worry about her heart and how it had somehow grown inextricably tangled with Mansur’s. She was afraid that if she tried to separate her heart from his she’d have nothing left. That it would be worse than coping with her amnesia.
“Go,” Zoya urged gently, dropping her voice even lower. “Go and tell Mansur I said it’s fine and that we’re not upset with him. Please.”
Amal opened her mouth to say she would stay and finish dinner, but she tightened her lips closed when she realized that she didn’t want to continue sitting here and pretending everything was all right.
She had to go after Mansur. Make him see reason before he destroyed the good thing that he could have with Zoya and her family.
“Go,” Zoya said once more.
Amal nodded, looking around the table and catching the questioning eyes of Zoya’s family. She knew Zoya would clean up the mess Mansur had created, and would explain why Amal had had to leave.
With a whispered, “Thanks...” Amal left her seat and hurried for the exit.
She nearly crashed into whoever was opening the door. The apology she’d begun to give stopped short when she saw who it was.
Amal gawked up at Mansur, stunned to see him entering the restaurant. Given that he had been less than enthused about the dinner, and hadn’t shown up before their meal started, Amal had assumed he’d abandoned her.
And with her clogged throat she couldn’t even tell him how she’d felt.
“I had to park the car elsewhere and I didn’t h
ave time to let you know,” he explained, his brows furrowing deeper the longer he gazed at her face. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she squeaked.
Sparing a glance around him, she noticed his car was missing. He’d been finding another place for the car. Of course! He hadn’t left her with his family and embarrassed her in front of good people.
She touched a hand to her chest, felt her heart taking longer to relax. She wanted to bask in the relief of having him here, but she knew that it was one battle won and the war was still being waged.
Looking over her head, Mansur regarded the five people awaiting them with an icy stare. “Did they say anything to you?” His tone was accusatory as he leaped to the erroneous conclusion that his sister and her family had injured her.
“No, they’ve been good to me,” she said.
His head snapped down to her, his scowl focused on her now.
Amal smiled meekly. “You weren’t behind me, and it’s been nearly half an hour. I thought...”
“You thought I’d left?” he deadpanned.
She dipped her head slowly, apologetically. It had been wrong of her to assume the worst in him. That he’d break a promise. That he would leave her all alone. She’d acted on her emotions first, and that wasn’t right.
“I should have known something was keeping you...”
Like scouting for a rare parking space in an over-populated marketplace.
He gazed intensely at her and she blushed harder for it.
“I’m sorry...” she whispered.
* * *
She was sorry. She looked it, too. Her lips trembled with her apology and her eyes were dewy with unshed tears.
How many times had she looked ready to cry near him? Damn. He was doing a terrible job of making her feel comfortable, making her feel happy, he thought with gritted teeth.
Amal’s eyes widened, and he realized belatedly that he might look like he was too angry to accept her apology.
Unclenching his jaw, he said, “I can see why you thought that. It took much longer than I hoped. It was a mission to find parking.”
And it had been—but he’d also hoped that he might not be lucky and therefore not have to attend the dinner. It would’ve been the perfect excuse. No parking. No family gathering.
Careful to keep his disappointment from his face, he looked toward where Zoya and her family waited on them. “Is it too late to order?”
Amal’s smile, so sunny and full of hope, twisted his heart and sharpened his guilt. She really wanted him to get along with his extended family. When it felt so utterly impossible to him.
She led the way to the table in the back. Half the table was wrapped by booth seating. Zoya and her fiancé made room. It left a spot for him beside Amal.
He studied Amal while she relayed why he’d arrived so late to the party. Zoya brightened at the explanation. He didn’t miss the relieved way she gripped her fiancé’s hand over the table.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Zoya told him once Amal had finished.
She smiled so wide and sunnily he had to fidget under the pressing weight of guilt. Manny wondered whether she’d be smiling anymore if she learned that he hadn’t wanted to be here. And that Zoya owed Amal her gratitude for having dragged him along. It was Amal he wanted to make happy. Amal he continued to love hopelessly and unrelentingly.
Zoya introduced her family. “My sisters,” she said, and he nodded as she named them.
Their names went over his head. His whole world was narrowing in tunnel vision on the older woman seated across from him. Surrounded by her daughters, she bobbed her head and smiled when Zoya said something in Amharic. But it was the maternal sheen of joy in her eyes that froze him.
He breathed harshly, felt Amal’s oud perfume filling his lungs and calming him somewhat. Still, most of that peace of mind slipped out of him when the older woman who looked so much like Zoya moved her mouth rapidly. She stood then, stretching her hands and reaching for him.
His stepmother was waiting on him to return the gesture. Manny eyed her warily. He knew what she wanted, and he didn’t require Zoya to translate.
His half-sister did it anyways. “My mother, Mansur. She says that seeing you is something she’s wanted for a long time.”
Amal prodded him under the table with her leg.
“It’s a pleasure,” Manny greeted her.
Another discreet nudge from Amal had him lifting his hands.
Zoya’s mother seized them, her hands stronger than they appeared. She was small, but stout. Softly rounded from her childbearing years. In a way, she reminded him of his mom. And that thought made him pull his hands away faster than Zoya’s mother was expecting.
Under the table, he curled his fists, felt a needling sense of betrayal eclipsing his guilt.
Zoya’s mother said something in Amharic.
“My mother thinks you look like our father.”
Zoya’s translation sucker-punched him in the gut. Manny gripped his knees, his fingers digging into his flesh. The pain was good, though. It kept him from hurtling off the emotional cliff he was staring down.
“You do,” Zoya commented.
He felt her stare, his face burning hot.
Zoya’s mother spoke again.
A dutiful daughter, Zoya translated. “She says that it’s like looking at a younger version of our father.”
The hot and cold sensation battering him was a frightening experience. Black and red dots muddied his vision, and he noticed that he wasn’t breathing evenly. A lack of oxygen was to blame. Panic would come naturally after that. He had to calm down. Cool it. But it was a strain on his overworked senses. He felt like he was shutting down. All because Zoya and her mother believed he resembled his father.
Amal’s hand came out of the blue. She touched his arm and compelled him to snap his head toward her. Over the ringing in his ears, he heard her say, “My father tells me I look like my mother. It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it?” She rounded her eyes at the table, her smile serene. “For everyone, that is. Looking at someone but seeing someone else.”
She gave his arm a squeeze and then retracted her comforting touch.
Manny stopped himself from grabbing at her hand. Instead, staring resolutely from Amal to the table laden with food, he said, “We should eat before the meal grows cold.”
“Yes, let’s eat,” Amal piped up.
Her cheerful tone dispelled the oppressive silence that rose up after what he’d said.
Manny concentrated harder than necessary on tearing a piece of injera and scooping chicken stew from the communal bowl. He ate fast, filling his mouth, worrying that at any moment he’d be fielding questions and wrestling the dark emotions this meeting with Zoya and her family had brought out in him.
By the time the food was finished, he was ready to call it a night.
“Would you like dessert and coffee, Amal?” Zoya flicked a look at him, too, her eyes inviting and kind.
Manny frowned. He nudged Amal. She closed her open mouth, her smile vanishing as she shared a meaningful look with him. He didn’t want her making this dinner longer than it had to be. Satisfied that she wouldn’t go against him, he turned his attention back to his doting half-sister to refuse her offer.
“We can’t, I’m afraid. I have business to attend to early tomorrow.”
“Next time, then,” Zoya said readily, her smile polite but tense.
Amal flashed her a weak smile. “Yes, I’m hoping we can meet again.”
Manny ground his teeth, annoyance surging up in him. “Let’s go,” he said to Amal.
Then he surprised them both as he took her hand and pulled her up with him. She went willingly, matching his quick strides to the restaurant’s exit.
Outside, he let go of her hand and flexed his fingers, missing her touch alr
eady.
“The car’s this way.”
He guided her across the street from the restaurant. Eager to grow the distance between him and Zoya and her mother and her sisters, Manny walked fast. Every so often he looked back to ensure he hadn’t lost Amal. She shadowed him, not once offering any complaint that he moved too quickly. Finally, feeling freer of the heavy weight on his chest, he slowed his pace and fell into step with her.
“You parked far away,” she remarked.
“The price of driving to the market and not taking a bus or a cab.” He looked down at her when her silence bothered him. “Are you angry?” he asked finally.
No point in beating around the bush. He supposed she wasn’t pleased with how he’d left so abruptly, and with not so much as a decent farewell. But what could he have said when he was planning never to meet with Zoya and her family ever again?
Nice meeting you, and enjoy your lives?
It sounded awful enough in his thoughts.
“You’re mad,” he said, the observation coming out more forceful than he wanted.
Amal peered up at him. “I’m sad.”
That brought his steps to a dead halt. She stopped, too. He faced her and stared and stared. At last, he asked, “Why?”
“I forced you into that dinner. I shouldn’t have.” She lowered her head, sighing. “I had hoped it would be easy for you, once you met them, but I can see I was wrong. And it’s not your fault.” She raised her eyes to him, imploring. “You were in a tough position, and you handled it a lot better than I could’ve wished for.”
She didn’t need to say it. He heard it clearly: she had anticipated an angry outburst from him in the middle of the dinner.
Was he really so transparent about his discomfort?
Manny scoffed lightly. Who am I kidding? He’d been ready to leap out of his skin all through dinner. He’d breathed easier with each step that had carried him further from the restaurant and the memory of the dinner he hadn’t wanted to be at.
