Ayesha At Last(61)

“Where are you going?” her little cousin asked.

Ayesha didn’t answer, only walking faster.

“You’re not wearing any shoes.”

Ayesha started to sprint, but Hira kept up easily.

“Go . . . back . . . home,” Ayesha panted.

“I’m bored,” Hira said. The little brat hadn’t even worked up a sweat. “Is this what happens when you get old, Ashi Apa?”

“What?” Ayesha gasped.

“You forget things like shoes, you stop breathing so good when you run and then you die?”

Ayesha stopped running and took deep, cleansing breaths, hands on her knees.

“Your toe is bleeding. Probably from the glass back there,” Hira said.

Ayesha straightened up and kept walking toward her house, Hira beside her. At the door, Hira took out a blue leather-bound notebook.

“You forgot this at our house,” she said. “I saw Khalid bhai give it to you.” She looked at her cousin curiously. “He seemed really happy to see you at first, and then he got mad. What did you say to him?”

Ayesha took the notebook from her cousin. “Nothing,” she said. “I didn’t say a thing.”

Hira shrugged and turned to go. “I’ll tell everyone you were feeling sad,” she said. “On account of your bleeding feet.”

Ayesha walked into the empty house in a daze, her feet stinging. She collapsed on the kitchen table, opened the notebook and started to write.

Things I should have said to you but only know how to write:



I’m not who I never said I was.

Not that I ever wanted to be.

And yet that night, the stars twinkling, Twinkies in your beard,

You smiled and leaned close.

Sometimes these things happen.

I hope you will be happy with her.

The way you never could be with me.

I’m not wifely material because

I’m who I said I never was.

And I’m not sure, yet, who that “was” could possibly turn out to be.



NANA stood by the side door entrance to the garage, holding a half finished cigarette. “Please do not tell my granddaughter,” he said when he spotted Khalid. “She does not approve of my habit. Of course, her disapproval makes me want to smoke more.”

“I don’t know your granddaughter,” Khalid said.

“Well then, let’s speak no more of this. Let us speak instead of a more interesting topic. Why is the fiancé hiding in the garage during his engagement?”

“I’m not hiding.”

“You remind me of my granddaughter. Lovely girl,” Nana said, lighting another cigarette. “Except when she’s nagging me about smoking.”

Khalid waved his hand in front of his face to dissipate the smoke. “I should get back,” he said.

Nana said nothing, and Khalid didn’t move. Then Nana said softly, “‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’”

The words were familiar. “I’ve seen you before,” Khalid said. “You’re always at the mosque.”

“I am old and have nothing else to do,” Nana said. “What is your excuse?”

Khalid smiled. Nana continued. “I think you are avoiding my initial question, which makes me even more eager to hear your answer. Tell me: Are you happy?”

“Happiness comes after the wedding,” Khalid said, looking away.

“You speak of love,” Nana said. “Love blossoms after the wedding, in the arrangements typical to our people. Happiness is a seed that takes root in your soul. Tell me, on this day of all days, are you capable of happiness?”

Khalid reached over and snagged a cigarette from Nana’s pack. He lit it expertly and took a deep drag. “I thought I was. Now I don’t know.”

Nana nodded slowly. “The question remains: Is it you or the person to whom you have pledged your life who presents the problem?”

Khalid threw the cigarette down and ground it under his foot. “I don’t know that either.”

Nana clapped him on the shoulder. “Then you know your quest. May Allah guide your journey.”





Chapter Twenty-Six

Over breakfast Monday morning, Farzana asked Khalid about the conference.

“Perhaps it will be best if you tell the imam you can no longer help,” she said, putting another greasy, overcooked aloo paratha—potato-stuffed flatbread—onto his plate. “We have a wedding to plan.”

Khalid swallowed the paratha with difficulty. He doubted his mother had bothered to put an air pocket inside. It tasted like plywood and sat unhappily in his stomach.

“Ammi, about the wedding,” Khalid started.

“It will be the event of the year, don’t worry about that,” Farzana said. “We’ll have to limit the nikah guest list to six hundred people. Maybe we should hold it in an outdoor tent. Or at the Hollywood Princess convention centre. You can walk down their crystal staircase and pose beside the marble fountain.”

“Ammi, I was thinking,” Khalid began again.

“As for the walima reception, I don’t see how we can get away with less than one thousand guests. Your father knew so many people, and Sulaiman will have to invite his business contacts. We must finalize the date.”