Before either of them could congratulate their daughter and son-in-law, the swarm of guests approached them, and Layla and Rafiq stepped away from each other, Layla to hug woman after woman and Rafiq to shake hands with every man. Layla’s body became automatic as she hugged them, her mouth moved to say thank you but her mind was quiet. Each time there was a break between people she looked up at her daughter, who had begun glowing—just like that—as though what she had been told by her mother as a girl really had been true: that the heavens opened up during the nikkah recitation unlike any other time in one’s life, and angels descended to shower their blessings.
Then Seema Ali approached her and Layla could not help but look for Amira beside her, but Amira was not there. Amar stood at the side of the stage speaking with Huda. Layla turned to Seema and smiled.
“We are so happy for you and Brother Rafiq,” Seema said.
“The next wedding we celebrate will be for your children, Inshallah,” Layla said, and Seema smiled. It was a strange time in their lives: the children like paper boats they were releasing into the water and watching float away.
“Hadia looks noorani today,” Seema told her. “I’ve always had a soft spot for your Hadia.”
Layla knew this. The small pinch that occasionally announced itself in Seema’s presence throbbed again. Hadia also had maintained a reverence for Seema that Layla never understood. She would be on her best behavior when Seema was around. Seema had watched her children for her when Layla was in the hospital and it might have been this time that had made an impression, though her children had likely forgotten those few days. Seeing Seema now, on this day, with both Amar and Amira in the same room, opened in Layla access to that secret they shared. They held each other’s gaze a moment longer as if to acknowledge this, and then smiled in a way that Layla knew they were communicating that they had moved on, that the past was in the past.
“Yes,” Layla said finally, “Hadia does look beautiful.”
It was her first time voicing the thought. Seema had complimented her daughter often as Hadia grew, and Layla had braced against the comments. When alone with her daughter, she reminded Hadia that it was cultivating humility and an internal beauty that truly mattered. And Hadia, a girl still, would twist from Layla’s grip, and if she looked at Layla in that moment then she looked at her darkly, as though Layla had snatched her compliments from her, or worse, had denied them.
But maybe it would have been all right, maybe it would have eased the space between Layla and Hadia, if once in a while Layla had also shared how she felt about her daughter: that Hadia was beautiful and thoughtful, that she was a natural leader, that she could do anything she put her mind to, that she was smart in a way that pleased Layla but also frightened her, not knowing what life would be like for a woman like her daughter, or if she would know how to help her navigate it.
* * *
IT WAS TIME for the food to be served. Her wedding, which had seemed to be going so slowly, had just sped up. Waiters lifted tops from silver dishes and suddenly the hall filled with the aroma of spices, and guests stood to flock to the food line. Huda recited the dishes she would bring her and Tariq: Hyderabadi biryani, chicken tikka masala, paneer and spinach. Then Baba took the stage and Hadia realized she had been waiting to greet him more than anyone. Mumma, surprisingly, had warmed quickly to Tariq, even asked after him on the phone and had not minded them spending time together before they were married. But Baba had avoided any discussion of him, even as the wedding approached. She felt the hopeful thud of her heart as he climbed the steps and she stepped away from Tariq to go to him, abandoning the decorum of the bride who sits still and waits for others to come to her. She knew that she had, over the years, hurt them. She consistently dashed any hope they had of finding a man to their liking for her, as her mother liked to point out, the way every other girl in the community had done for their parents.
She hoped Baba would look at her with love and pride, the same look as when she rushed inside after speaking with the admissions dean of the medical school. Even now, anything she accomplished that made her feel remotely proud was not done for her alone, but in hope that it would give her parents the thought—that is my daughter, Hadia. Baba took her face in his hands and he kissed her forehead.
“Are you happy?” she found she was asking him.
“Are you?” He watched her.
She nodded, as if she were a little girl still.
“Then I am happy. How could I not be? I have gained a son.”
He had never expressed to her that her independent happiness was tied to his. Nor had he hinted that he would one day refer to Tariq as his son. Baba turned from Hadia and stepped forward to embrace him.
* * *
ANY MINUTE NOW he would leave to find her. The hall filled with chatter. A courtyard, she had said. He had looked up at her then. Just to be certain she was suggesting what he thought she was. He had never forgotten her eyes—their shape, their dark lashes, how their color changed in the sunlight and when she cried, appeared brown when she wore brown and a vibrant emerald green when she wore green, how in the summer when her skin tanned he was even more disturbed by their effect. But he had forgotten that particular disturbance: how he would need to look away to gather his thoughts again. Tonight she had looked at him with eyes as earnest as ever. And he knew it was safe to agree to meet.
Five minutes now. He looked at the face of his watch so long he thought he could hear its tick. The tables emptied around him, almost everyone stood in line for the buffet, and though he was hungry he couldn’t even think of eating now. In four minutes, he would make his way. If he could smoke to calm his nerves. If he could drop by the bar for just a shot. An old man looking at him waved him over. Amar turned to see if there was someone else he could be calling, but the man smiled and pointed at him, as if to say yes, you. He rested his hands on a cane and nodded as Amar approached him, then gestured to the empty seat. Amar pretended to not notice and stayed standing, waiting for the old man to speak.
“You are Rafiq’s boy. I have not seen you for years—do you remember me?”
Amar had never seen him before.
“You were this much when I visited.” He indicated with his hand a foot off the floor and he said, wagging a finger, “You were a badmash boy—you would tease and tease your Mumma Baba and if they even looked at you like they were about to scold you, you would cry. I am an old friend of your dada’s. You look like your grandfather. You stand like him too. The way you twist your wrist to look at your watch—your dada did just that. I called you over to look closely. Remarkable. Your father has a shadow of his father’s features, but you are a copy. Has he ever told you that?”
Amar shook his head. Four minutes, but he took a seat. He had never met his dada, or anyone who knew him, other than his father. As a child, Amar thought of his father orphaned young and could not imagine how he had managed to move through the world alone that early. Amar listened as the old man explained how he had flown in from Arizona with his young grandson Jawad, just to attend the wedding of his oldest friend’s granddaughter.
“It’s a hard blow, losing a friend. You are too young to know it. And your grandfather was very young when he died. Your father still a boy. Not only do you lose a friend, but you realize, for the first time, that you too are close to death.”
Amar thought of Abbas, stepping forward to bear the brunt of Seema Aunty’s anger at a window Amar had broken, even after Seema Aunty had threatened Abbas that he would have to pay for it from the little he had saved.
“What was it like for my father after my grandfather died?”