“Am I a child that needs to be monitored?” he barked at her.
She recoiled from his tone. His eyes were slightly glossy. He seemed to sway just a little. Had he been drinking? The question pierced her as she searched his face. She stepped closer to sniff for the scent of alcohol, but could only pick up the heavy stench of cigarettes. She pressed her hand against his chest and tried to calm him. He stepped back, swatted her hand away, her bangles clinking against each other. She touched her wrist, shocked at the force of his impact more than any dull pain she felt.
“Amar?”
“Hadia chooses who she is with. Hadia chooses someone who is not even Shia—and how do you react? You throw her an extravagant wedding.”
He laughed an unnerving laugh, just one false note. He gestured to everything around him. The waiters clearing the cake plates averted their eyes as they walked past.
“People can hear you, Amar. You’re yelling.”
“Let them hear. Maybe then you will listen to what I am saying—all you care about is what people will think. What people will say.”
It wasn’t true. He was just like his father, letting his anger cloud his judgment. She looked helplessly around the hall. The few guests who were there looked once toward them and then at each other, then returned quickly to the main hall, whispering.
“I did exactly what Hadia is being celebrated for. No, I did what I thought was so important to you—I chose someone from the community. And I loved her, Mumma. I loved her.”
His voice broke into a whisper. An instant dip in her stomach and she was sick.
“Oh, Ami.”
She tried again to place her hand on his chest and again he swatted her away. Another guest looked in their direction. Layla pinched the bridge of her nose. She stood with her eyes closed. She had not prepared for this, had never thought he would find out, especially not after so much time had passed. Amar swayed on his feet.
“How could you, Mumma? You out of everyone.” His voice was hoarse.
She had done the right thing: that girl was bound to break his heart.
“You were working so hard, Amar. You were so determined. I didn’t want you to have a single distraction.”
“You went behind my back. You ruined what I had been working for.”
The dull headache had become a migraine. She pinched her nose again to keep herself from shaking.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered, and it was true.
Huda approached them then, holding up her sari so she could walk faster.
“What is going on here? People have begun to notice.” Huda spat the words.
“Admit it. Admit that if it had been Hadia or Huda you would have reacted differently.”
“It is not true. It is not why.”
Layla’s voice was shaking. But she found she couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Look around you. Look at how true it is.”
The guest book fell to the floor, the table holding it up collapsed, and with it came crashing a flower arrangement, the flowers spilling out and the water from the vase darkening the carpet. Children who had been playing in the lobby stared. One of them started to cry and an older one lifted him up. They were going to tell their parents. There is a scary man in the lobby yelling at Layla Aunty and kicking the table, they would say. Layla could not move. Huda knelt to the ground and lifted the table up and straightened the cloth on it. She picked the guest book up and unwrinkled the pages that had bent, lifted up the vase and tried to put the flowers back in, but they looked so messy Huda hid them under the table. Acting on his anger seemed to make Amar calmer. He was breathing very heavily.
“Please, Amar. People are going to come and look. I thought you needed to concentrate on your studies. You were doing so well. I thought she would be a distraction.”
“You never thought I’d do well.”
“Sachi, Ami, I swear I did.”
“You wouldn’t have gone to her mother if you thought I’d do well, if you really believed in me. You wouldn’t have gone behind my back. You would have trusted that that could be my life.”
“Come with me, Amar.” Huda grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him. He pushed her off of him.
“Let go of me. You are all liars, backbiters, and you make me feel like I am the liar? You tell me that to go behind the back of the stranger is to eat his flesh? What about me?” He jabbed his finger to his chest. “I am your son. I am your son and you went behind my back. And you lied to me. And you tell me again and again that I am the one who has lied to you? I am the one who has betrayed you?”
Layla felt as if she had been struck across her face. She wanted to hold him until he stopped trembling and yelling or she wanted to run to the bathroom, lock the door behind her, spend the rest of the evening unseen by anyone.
“Amar,” Huda hissed, “why did you come if you were going to make a scene?”
Huda gripped his arm again, tighter this time, and she shook it.
“You all betrayed me. Why did you even call me back?”
He was staring unfocusedly at the ground, as though he had begun talking to himself.
“Because we want you here,” Huda said.
“You’ve never acted like it.”
“Because Hadia wants you here.”
Layla did not know she had begun crying until she moved her hand from her mouth and saw her fingers were wet. Huda held on to both of Amar’s arms until he stopped trying to fight her.
“Mumma, go back inside,” Huda instructed her.
“It was a mistake, Amar,” Layla said, her voice very thin, and she tried to reach out to touch him. “Please. I made a mistake.”
But it only made him angrier. He twisted to get out of Huda’s grip.
“Maybe who I am hurts you, Mumma, but I have no choice over that. But you have intentionally hurt me.”
“Go, Mumma. Go back inside.” Huda was yelling at her now too. Huda let go of Amar for just a moment and pointed to the main hall. “Now.”
Layla looked from Huda to Amar. She had never seen her son look so defeated and still so angry. Not against her. She turned around and walked into the hall in a daze, her hand over her mouth so tight it was as if she were keeping something from spooling out of her. Then the too-bright lights of the chandeliers. The cacophony of voices. The emcee taking the stage to announce the mirror ritual. A crowd of guests had gathered by the stage, and others sat in their seats, just waiting for a show.
* * *
SHE HOPED IT meant nothing that her mother and sister were not by her side as she was led to the mirror. Hordes of people gathered around the stage. As a child, this had been her favorite wedding ritual. It seemed the most bizarre and therefore the most magical. Once she was one of the girls who watched wide-eyed from the bottom of the stage, wanting to catch a glimpse: how the bride and groom sat with a mirror between them, facing one another, under a beautiful, sheer red cloth that shimmered, their gazes lowered and only lifted to each other’s reflection. It was a ritual that had come about in the days when one never even saw the face of their spouse before they were wed. It had been how her grandparents on both sides had first seen one another. By the time her parents had gotten married, it was a formality; her father had visited her mother’s home twice. They had never spoken in private but had seen each other from across the room. Now that it was Hadia’s turn, it was no more than a performance—she had memorized Tariq’s freckle beneath his eyebrow, the spot on his beard that grew in a swirl. Each generation lost touch bit by bit. By the time it was her children’s turn, would there even be a point?