A Good Wife

by Samra Zafar

“March?” said Ahmed, when I told him of my journey home. “I’m not paying rent on this place for three months while you’re gone. I’ll move back with my parents as soon as you leave. We’ll figure out what to do when you return.”

  With those words, the second chance was truly over. I would never go back to that salmon-coloured house. There would be no place to return to, even if I were tempted to do so.

  As I slipped out of the living room, I thought about what was in store for me. I would have to have the baby on my own. I would be a single mother of two children. Yes, I told myself, I would be a failure. But I would be a failure raising her children with doting grandparents and aunties who spoiled them. I would be a failure surrounded by people who loved and supported her. And I would be a failure without fear in her step or bruises on her arms.

  * * *

  Nine months after my first return to Ruwais, I was bounding again towards my family at the Abu Dhabi airport. Back in Mississauga, I had made my apologies to my daycare clients, bid Amma and Abba another chilly goodbye and packed up all of my documents and precious belongings once more.

  This time, the reunion with my parents and sisters was not awash with tears. I was no longer mourning my marriage but was looking, instead, to the future. I was here to celebrate my sister’s new life and to start one of my own. This time, I really had escaped the sticky web of my Canadian life.

  I thought I would never be caught up in it again.

  CHAPTER 10

  DARK DAYS

  My sisters, my mom, Aisha and I were crowded into a hotel room in Abu Dhabi. We had spent a wonderful week together in Ruwais and were staying overnight before leaving for Karachi the following day. There was so much to talk about. But unlike the previous spring, this was an unbroken outpouring of upbeat news—my sisters filling me in on the details of Warda’s engagement and their plans for the big celebration in Karachi. We had decided to stay in Abu Dhabi for a day so that my father could visit his doctor and we would be closer to the airport the following morning.

  When Papa came through the hotel room door after his appointment, he was gripping a manila envelope, a sober look on his face.

  “My results,” he said, lifting up the envelope. My father had been suffering from kidney disease for years. About six months previously, frustrated that his treatment was not improving his kidney function, he’d opted for a holistic treatment plan. Recently, he had visited his doctor in Abu Dhabi to follow up. Now he had received the results of his tests.

  The room grew quiet. Papa moved to the sofa while the rest of us gathered around him. He tore open the end of the envelope and pulled out a sheet of light-blue paper.

  I didn’t read the words on the left side of the page. My eyes were instead drawn to the column on the right. It was simply a long string of one word repeated—“critical.” For each and every function tested, the result was critical. My eyes turned to my father. The expression on his face gave me another shock. He looked truly terrified.

  My mother gasped. Saira stood up and ran over to the closet. She closed herself in, but we could still hear her sobs. I looked over to my mother. She was trying to maintain her composure. I knew I couldn’t manage that. Instead, I excused myself and went to the bathroom to cry.

  It didn’t take long before it was clear we had all given ourselves over to tears. I returned to the room and joined my sisters and my parents. Squeezing together in a circle that spilled from the couch to the floor, we wrapped our arms around each other and wept over the bitter truth: my father was gravely ill.

  * * *

  The weeks that followed were a frenzy of preparations, the wedding activities unfolding under a cloud brought by the unexpected and sad business of my father’s medical care.

  Papa needed to start dialysis, but Ruwais had no facilities, so several trips to Abu Dhabi would be required every week. That would leave him exhausted—it was hard to imagine that he would be able to keep working or living his life the way he wanted. The other option was to start dialysis but follow it with a transplant. That surgery would be exorbitantly expensive in the UAE and my father’s sister Nasreen, who had offered to be his organ donor, was in Pakistan. My parents decided they would stay in Karachi after the wedding—Papa would get his surgery there.

  Once we got to Karachi, we moved into Uncle Ali’s house and started to arrange for wedding flowers and to review menus, while my father was shuttled back and forth to the hospital for dialysis and pre-op tests. One day he walked into the house looking defeated.

  Aunt Nasreen had just finished her donor evaluation. She had been rejected.

  “They discovered she has diabetes,” he said.

  One by one, his siblings were disqualified because of various health concerns. My sisters and I went for tests as well. Only two of us were matches, and I wouldn’t be able to donate a kidney until after my baby was born. Papa refused to consider taking a kidney from Warda as she was about to get married. We would have to look beyond the family for a potential donor.

  My father’s illness was like a powerful narcotic that dulled my memories and made me look at the world through a haze. The confidence I had felt stepping onto the plane alone with Aisha was gone. The world was dark, treacherous and confusing. The only thing I could see clearly was my mother’s distress. After years and years of mercurial union, my parents seemed to have come to an understanding and settled into a relatively contented companionship. It was obvious that my mother was petrified at the thought of now being alone. I noticed the gentle way she spoke to my father and the comforting replies he made in return. They were leaning on each other in a way I suspected that they had done even during all those years of fighting. I found my thoughts drifting to Ahmed.

  When I left Canada, Ahmed had talked about coming to Karachi for the wedding but eventually decided that he just couldn’t afford it. I’d been hugely relieved. Now, however, I really did want him with me and my family. It was difficult to go anywhere or do anything in Pakistan without a man. And so many men in the family had been sidelined by my father’s medical crisis. Having another man to negotiate with the wedding suppliers or act as an escort would be a big help to everyone. I was also worried my father wouldn’t make it. It seemed important for Ahmed to see him one last time.

  But more than anything, I hoped that Ahmed would be able to support and comfort me. I knew he had it in him. I remembered how he had shored me up when I first discovered I was pregnant with Aisha, how he had soothed me and helped me stay calm in the midst of the unknown. During one of our phone calls, I raised the possibility of his joining me in Pakistan. A few days later, he agreed to come. I phoned the travel agent immediately and booked him a ticket for the end of February.

  The day of Ahmed’s flight arrived. I called him a few hours before his plane was scheduled to depart. “Are you headed to the airport now?” I asked.

  “Yeah, in a while.” He sounded a bit surprised at my question, as if he weren’t aware of what time it was.

  “Ahmed,” I said, “you’ll have to leave right now if you want to give yourself enough time.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “I’ve just got a few things to do first.”

  It made me nervous that he was cutting it so close. I waited anxiously for the next couple of hours. Then, after the departure time had come and gone, I called him again. I knew if he had made the flight, he wouldn’t answer.

  He picked up after a couple of rings.

  “Why aren’t you on the plane?” I asked in alarm.

  “Amma had to go to the bank,” Ahmed said. “I had to take her.”

  I was dumbstruck. As Ahmed continued to make excuses, it became clear to me that he had never intended to take the flight. No doubt he hadn’t wanted to upset Amma with his absence. With the safety of thousands of miles between us, I let my frustration loose. Why had he let me book the ticket in the first place? Did he not care that we had just wasted a huge amount of money we didn’t really have? And why was he still more concerned wi
th how his parents felt than with what his wife needed?

  By the time I got off the phone, I realized the only thing that mattered to me was the last idea: Amma and Abba were still pulling the strings.

  * * *

  We all tried to put my father’s health crisis out of our minds during the celebrations, but it was hard to do with his obvious fatigue and frequent trips to the hospital. By the time the wedding had come and gone, his condition had visibly deteriorated. Dialysis had kept him going for a little over a month, but a transplant appeared to be his only real hope. There was a hospital in Lahore that arranged for independent organ donations. My parents travelled there to begin the process of finding a match, taking my sisters, grandfather and uncle along for support.

  With so many people having to be put up by our Lahore relatives, I decided to stay behind in Karachi with Aisha until closer to the surgery. Only able to talk with my sisters and parents by phone, I felt the full weight of the situation descended.

  After several weeks in Lahore, however, my father was told that a suitable donor had been located and the surgery was scheduled. As I walked through the doors of the hospital, my spirits sank. I had been in many hospitals in Pakistan, and this one was better than most. But there was still no comparison with hospitals in the UAE or Canada. The hallways and rooms were white, but the paint looked far from fresh, and dust and grime seemed to rest in every corner and along every windowsill. The carts and equipment we passed on the way to my father’s room were scratched and dented, the furniture old and scarred. This hardly looked like a place for complicated transplant surgery.

  But all my concerns about the facilities fell away when I walked through the door of my father’s hospital room. He was sitting up, obviously waiting, his smile huge when he saw us.

  * * *

  The wait had left everyone feeling fragile and spent, but now the day was upon us and the mood turned anxiously hopeful. Aisha and I stayed for as long as we could, talking and hugging and telling stories, and then it was time for all of us to go back to our relatives’ house and for my father to rest.

  The next day everyone met again in Papa’s hospital room, awaiting his evening surgery. When the orderly finally arrived to take my father into the operating theatre, Papa waved the wheelchair away.

  “I can walk,” he said proudly.

  My mother, my sisters, and my uncles followed my father, stopping at the surgical waiting area. For four hours, we sat looking expectantly at the doors that led to the operating rooms. After a couple of hours, we were surprised to see an orderly approach us with a tray of biryani, curries and naan. But much to our alarm, he walked right past, disappearing into the operating-room area.

  “What are they doing in there?” asked my uncle. “Having a picnic?”

  A few people chuckled, but it didn’t mask the anxiety in the room. The hospital hardly seemed clean, never mind sterile, even without snacks in the operating theatre.

  It was about one in morning when the doors swung open and a stretcher bearing my father appeared before us. The surgery, the doctor told us, had been a success.

  * * *

  In the days that followed, Papa seemed to get stronger and stronger, and his test results came back indicating that the new kidney was functioning well. My relief was quickly followed by bone-deep exhaustion. Advancing pregnancy, the stress over my father, the crowded living conditions in my relatives’ house and now the daily trips to the hospital were draining. So it was mid-morning when Warda, Aisha and I finally made it to Papa’s hospital room about a week after his surgery. As we came into the room, I noticed that his bed was empty. My mother and Uncle Aziz were sitting in the chairs, crying quietly.

  “Your father had a heart attack in the middle of the night,” said my uncle. “He’s in the ICU now.”

  My sister and I looked at one another in disbelief. I couldn’t stay in the room. I took Aisha by the hand and fled to the prayer room. Collapsing onto the prayer rug, I begged Allah to spare my father.

  * * *

  The following day Papa was back in his room; the day after that, his colour had returned, and he seemed tired but much himself again. While everyone fussed over him, he turned his focus on me.

  “Samra, you look worn out,” he said to me. I had returned to his bedside after taking Aisha for a short walk outside the hospital. “What are you still doing here? This is all too stressful for a pregnant woman. You should go back to Canada where people can take care of you.”

  “No, Papa,” I said. “I want to stay here with you.”

  “Don’t be so stubborn, Samra. It’s too crowded at the house. You need a place to rest, a good bed to sleep in.”

  I shook my head. He tried another tack. “And so many people here, in our relatives’ house. I’m worried about them, too. This has been a terrible inconvenience.”

  I simply couldn’t imagine returning to Canada, being so far away from my frail father and my weary mother. Finally, however, I agreed that I would take Aisha back to Karachi, where I could have my own room and perhaps get a little more rest. My father seemed satisfied.

  Two days later, Aisha and I stopped by the hospital to say goodbye to Papa before heading for the airport. As I stood at the bottom of his bed, rubbing his feet, everything in my heart told me that I shouldn’t leave. Aisha was leaning against me. She had grown very fond of her grandfather since our arrival in Abu Dhabi three months ago. But when we entered the hospital room, she didn’t run to him like she usually did. She knew that he was not himself yet.

  “Why is he always lying down now?” she asked me. “Why does he have so many tubes in him?”

  “Beta, come here,” said my father.

  “Be gentle!” I warned her as she ran to his side. She paused and put her head softly on his chest. “Nana, I’m going to miss you.”

  “Don’t worry, Aisha,” Papa said. “I’ll be out of here in no time. And I’m going to come to Canada to see you.” He was stroking her hair. Then he kissed her lightly on the forehead.

  My mother got up from her chair and came over to Aisha. She took her hand. “Come with me now. Let your mother talk to her father.”

  Once we were alone, I moved closer to him and took his hand. “I’m scared, Papa,” I said. “What if something happens to you?”

  My father tried to reassure me, just as he had Aisha, but I was shaking and inconsolable. “This is the fear in you that I’ve been trying to get you to overcome since you were a child,” he said gently. “I wish you could see what I can see in you. You don’t need me. You don’t need anyone else.”

  I didn’t want to let go of him.

  “You can do anything, Samra,” he said. “You just have to recognize your own strength.” I stood by him for a few moments longer, squeezing his hand, unable to move. Finally, he dropped my hand and nodded towards the door.

  As I walked out of the hospital my heart was breaking. Once we got to the airport, it was all I could do not to tear out of the boarding lounge and take a cab right back to him.

  * * *

  I had been in Karachi only one day when the world fell apart. I was in my bedroom when I heard my aunt cry out and start to weep. I rushed into the living room. Uncle Ali handed me the phone. Uncle Aziz in Lahore was on the other end. He told me that Papa had had another heart attack. He was now on life support.

  For the next two days, I was on and off the phone with my sister Saira in Lahore. Her reports were grim. Papa was paralyzed, couldn’t talk and wasn’t able to eat. But, I told myself, he had bounced back after the surgery, had regained some strength after the first heart attack. He would overcome this, too.

  On the morning of March 22, 2006, I awoke to the sounds of my aunt wailing. I leapt out of bed and ran to her. When I found her, I knew what she was about to say, but I didn’t want to hear it.

  The news she had to share simply didn’t make sense. It was impossible. I needed light and air to help me think. I stepped out onto the balcony outside the living room. G
ripping the wrought-iron railing, I looked down. The street below me was rippling and out of focus; I felt my knees begin to buckle.

  And then a voice: “Mommy?” Aisha’s small hand grabbed mine, pulling me back to myself again. I straightened and shakily led her back inside.

  * * *

  My father’s death was something that refused to become part of my reality. I would approach the truth of it for a second or two and then fall back into denial.

  One of the first times my mind did this little dance, I was with my aunt, sitting on her bed with her, hugging. We had just finished packing our bags for our flight to Islamabad, where my father’s funeral would take place. We hadn’t spoken much since that morning’s phone call, moving through the necessary arrangements like automatons. Now, in this quiet moment, I begged her to tell me what I wanted to hear.

  “He’s fine, right?” I could only just form the words.

  “Yes, he’s fine now,” she replied. “The soul never dies.”

  The tears that came at the sound of those words made me incapable of speech for hours after.

  * * *

  We arrived in Islamabad in the inky darkness. A minivan was waiting in the airport parking lot, spilling forth my aunts and uncles, my sisters and my mother. We hugged and clung on to each other before Uncle Ali shepherded us into the seats.

  We were on our way to the hospital to see my dad, or so I told myself. But of course it wasn’t a hospital. It was a morgue.

  When we arrived, everyone climbed out of the van. I hung back as they headed into the building. Aunt Nasreen took my hand. “Come, Samra.”

  “I don’t want to know,” I said.

  “You need to see,” she replied. “You need to do this.”

  She led me into the building, down a dimly lit corridor, to a bright chilly room where the rest of my family was waiting. One wall was lined with small, square doors. A white-garbed attendant tugged one of the handles and pulled out a drawer. My father, grey and motionless, slid out on a tray before us. White cotton was stuffed into his nostrils. I gasped.