by Zara Raheem
I swallowed the lump in my throat and said nothing.
Hisham cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I might be crazy here, but why do I get the feeling that you’ve been avoiding me all night?” I looked at him, the confusion in his eyes mirroring the same confusion I felt inside. “Leila, what’s wrong?”
“You’re engaged,” I said bluntly, standing up. He looked at me with his mouth open, trying to articulate a response.
“Leila, I was going to tell you . . .” he began, his voice taking on a flat tone.
“Really? Because there were at least a dozen opportunities to tell me yesterday, but you never did.”
Hisham jammed his hands into his pockets and looked down. “I’m sorry, Leila. You’re right. I should’ve said something.”
“So why didn’t you? Why did you make me believe that you . . .” My voice trailed off.
“That I what?” He looked up, taking a small step toward me.
“That you liked me,” I whispered.
“I do like you, Leila.” He shrugged. “I think you’re amazing. But I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get caught up like that . . . I should’ve told you.”
I looked into his face, searching for answers. Those same eyes that once felt so warm and promising suddenly looked distant and unfamiliar.
“So that’s it? You’re still going to go through with it?” I asked, trying to steady the tremble in my voice.
“It’s not like that, Leila. It’s . . . it’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“This is just how it is here. Not everything is like it is in the movies.” Hisham sighed. “People don’t end up with whoever they want, Leila. There are obligations. There are compromises to be made.”
“You don’t think I understand compromise?” I scoffed. “Trust me, we all make compromises. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a choice.”
“A choice? Leila, look around you,” Hisham exclaimed. “Do you think Meena and Haroon had a choice? Do you think our parents had a choice? As much as you’d like to think you have control over your life, you don’t.”
I stared at him, hot tears pressing against my eyes.
“When it’s all said and done, we will eventually end up with who our parents choose for us. That’s our only choice.”
I wiped my face and looked away.
“Leila,” Hisham said gently. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“It’s fine.” I shook my head, taking a step back. “Congratulations on your engagement—”
“Leila.” He reached out to touch my elbow, but I quickly slipped away.
“Goodbye, Hisham,” I said, just as the tears began flowing down my cheeks.
“Leila . . .” he pleaded as I hurried across the garden, refusing to let him see me cry. My name was the final word I heard as I ran back inside, leaving my shattered heart on the other side of the glass doors that shut behind me.
* * *
“How could you turn down such a good boy?” my mother cried as we waited to board our plane. “Ya Allah! Sometimes I really don’t understand you, Leila.” She shook her head.
I stared at my boarding pass and remained silent. Meena’s reception had ended with a teary rukhsati ceremony, and then she and Haroon had left immediately for their honeymoon. Her final words to me before she left were “I’m so sorry, Leila.”
The next evening—on our final night in India—my mother and Jamila aunty invited Asad and his family for dinner without so much as asking my opinion. As irritated as I was, I found a quiet moment to finally tell Asad that I had thought things over and felt it was best that we didn’t move forward with an engagement. Although I could sense his disappointment, he took the news better than I had expected.
My mother, on the other hand, did not.
“You keep saying you are finding someone on your own, Leila, but I don’t see you putting in any effort,” she said as people began lining up.
“We are now boarding rows one through fifteen. Also any families traveling with small children and any disabled or elderly passengers needing a little extra time on the Jetway . . .”
“In case you forgot, Ammi, Asad was not someone I chose on my own.”
“Okay, so I helped a little. Is that so terrible? And what have you done? It has been almost three months, Leila, and you haven’t brought home a single person. Your father and I have agreed to give you time, but all you keep saying is ‘This one is too old. This one is too this. This one is too that.’”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Ammi, but I’m trying,” I mumbled.
“Pfft,” my mother sneered. “Be honest, Leila—you are not trying at all! You are just wasting all of our time!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your patience. We are now going to begin boarding rows sixteen to twenty-eight. I repeat, rows sixteen to twenty-eight.”
As groups of people pushed past us, my mother and I remained still, glowering at each other. How could she be so inconsiderate? If only she knew how much I had wanted things to work out with Hisham, and even Zain, but they just hadn’t. It was beyond my control.
“How can you say that?” I fumed back. “You don’t even know what I’ve had to go through these past few months!”
“What have you had to go through, Leila? A few bad dates and your life is ending? You don’t realize how difficult it is for me to see everyone’s children getting married, and you are still here. Think of what I have to go through!” she retorted.
“This isn’t about you!”
“Thank you again for your patience. We are now going to board the remaining passengers. All remaining passengers can now come forward.”
“Just because I’m not doing things your way, Ammi, doesn’t mean that I’m doing them wrong!”
“Bas! I am done talking about this.” My mother held up her hand. “I have given you three whole months, and you have done nothing in that time. Enough is enough, Leila. Either you find someone like you keep saying, or it is time for us to take over again.” She grabbed her purse and stormed off, leaving me in the empty gate alone.
Revelations
“You fell for the groom’s twin brother?!” my friends cried, stupefied by this admission.
It was Tuesday night—a week since I had returned from India—and I had accidentally made the mistake of telling my friends about Hisham as we pored over pictures from Meena’s wedding.
The past seven days had been more or less a blur. My mother and I had managed to cool off from our argument on the twenty-hour flight back home, but the harshness of her words still left behind a bruise, even though I tried my best to forget them. Instead, I busied myself with preparations for my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party, which was set for the following weekend. My mother had coercively transferred everything event-related over to me, so in between negotiating venue prices, picking floral arrangements, and taste-testing cake options—the only silver lining—I had barely any time to mull over my fallout with Hisham. But now that my friends knew, they of course wanted all the details.
“How did that . . . how did you . . . ?”
“It just kind of happened,” I muttered, my face burning with humiliation.
“I can’t believe you didn’t know he was engaged!” Hannah exclaimed. “That’s the first question you should’ve asked!”
“What, you mean like, ‘Hi, how are you? Are you engaged?’”
“Not like that! But you know what I mean.”
“What about him?” Tania asked, shaking her head. “Why would he not tell you about his engagement? I can’t believe he led you on like that.”
Hannah and Liv nodded in agreement.
Hisham’s reasons for concealing his engagement were still unclear to me. Maybe he didn’t realize he was leading me on? Or perhaps he did and he simply didn’t care? All I knew is it would’ve saved me a lot of tears and heartbreak had I known sooner.
“I know this wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for, Leila,” Tania said
sympathetically. “I’m so sorry.”
I thought about where I was when I first started this process—my Bollywood fantasies, my unrealistic expectations about finding love—and where I was now. It felt like an entire lifetime had passed in between. There was actually a time when I believed I was incapable of falling in love, and now here I was, having had my heart broken twice in the span of three months. It might not have been the outcome I wanted, but in a way, it was kind of remarkable.
“Now that you’ve experienced love twice,” Hannah said, “do you at least feel like you have a better sense of what you’re looking for?”
I thought about my list and how far I had come from it. For the first time in my life, I had surprised even myself with my openness to being with someone who grew up in India. I’d always assumed that because of the differences in cultural upbringing, I would prefer someone American versus Indian-born. However, after spending time with Hisham, I realized that was not true. Our differences actually brought us together, and it was through him that I was able to appreciate aspects of my culture in a way I never had before. My feelings for Hisham went beyond a cursory list, and they taught me more about myself than I had ever expected.
“I do. I feel like I’ve grown,” I said softly. “But . . .” I could feel the lump rising in my throat as the thing that had been nagging me for the past week finally formed itself into words. “I may have fallen in love, but I wasn’t able to convince anyone to fall for me. So at the end of it all, I feel like I’ve failed.”
I closed my eyes tightly as my mother’s words replayed in my mind.
If you do not succeed in finding a suitable boy by our thirtieth anniversary, it is in our hands from there. No more excuses.
“My future now rests with my parents,” I said, looking at my friends. “And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Leila, of course you can!” Liv said.
“This is still your life, regardless of what your parents tell you!” Hannah added.
I looked at Tania and she remained silent.
“It’s complicated.” I shook my head. “Yes, I’ve grown. Yes, I’ve learned about myself, but what does it matter? When it’s all said and done, perhaps we do just end up with who our parents choose for us. Maybe there is no greater purpose. Maybe that is our kismet. Maybe that is our only choice.”
* * *
That night as I lay in bed, I began scrolling through the photographs from Meena’s wedding once again. There was one in particular that I was looking for. My fingers moved quickly, swiping through each image on the iPad until finally the photo I wanted came onto the screen. I held it up.
It was a picture of me and Meena on the night of her mehendi ceremony. I tapped the screen to zoom in closer.
Everything in the background was blurred except for the two of us. We were sitting on the stage while she was getting her mehendi applied. I was leaning in close as if telling her a secret, and Meena had both her arms outstretched, her head tilted back, laughing. She was radiant. I closed my eyes, thinking of her in that moment. Where would the girl in that photograph be if she had had the choice to live out her life the way she wanted? Would she have become an interior designer? Would she be traveling the world? Living in some glamorous city? Would she still have married Haroon? I looked once more at her image. There was something captivating about her smile. It was so full of . . . hope.
I swiped to the next image. It was a photo of Hisham with his mother. He had his arm wrapped around her shoulders and they were both grinning from ear to ear. My fingers gently grazed the outline of his face as I thought about the deal I had made with my parents nearly three months ago. I would have to tell them that I had failed to deliver on my promise. I just needed to figure out when the right time would be.
My phone suddenly buzzed. It was Annie.
“Hey!” I said, setting the iPad down. “How was your trip?”
“Incredible!” she said, her voice energized. “I was on a remote island off the coast of the Philippines snorkeling through shallow hidden caves with manta rays, sharks, and stingless golden jellyfish. It was surreal!”
“When did you get back?”
“I think a week ago? Everything’s a blur. My body reacted to one of the delicacies I ate at my homestay, and I spent the first couple days confined to my bed.”
“Oh, that’s awful. What did you eat?”
“Bat soup. At least I can say I tried it, right?”
“Your life is so much cooler than mine,” I said, laughing wistfully.
“I don’t know about that. From what you told me last time, your life doesn’t seem to be lacking in excitement either. So, how did your dating dilemma work out? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Unfortunately, the odds didn’t work in my favor,” I said, glancing at the photo still on the screen. “Was I crazy for thinking they would?”
“Honestly . . .” Annie paused. “Yeah.”
I cringed at her bluntness.
“You do have a habit of setting yourself up for disappointment, Leila,” she said. “So what now? Are you finally going to let go of these fantasies and move on with your life?”
“I have to. I’ve agreed to let my parents choose someone for me.”
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“It was part of the deal.”
“Leila, I’ve always tried to make sense of some of your choices, but you’ve really topped yourself with this one.”
“There’s nothing I can do, Annie.”
“You can stop living the life you think you should, Leila, and start living the life you want.”
“What if this is what I want?” I asked.
Annie remained silent. I could imagine her absorbing my words on the other side. She finally let out a small breath and sighed.
“If it really is, Leila, then maybe I’m not the one you should be convincing.”
Deadline
Saturday morning—the day of my parents’ anniversary party—I woke up earlier than usual. In less than eight hours, my three-month deadline would be coming to an end, and I would have to inform my parents that my plans to find a “suitable boy” had backfired. In less than eight hours, the fate of my future would lie entirely in their hands, and they would have free rein to arrange my marriage with whomever they pleased. I should’ve been panicking, but instead I felt strangely calm. There was comfort in knowing there was nothing left to do. I walked into the kitchen and was greeted by both of my parents eating breakfast at the table.
“Good morning, Leila!” My mother smiled, pulling out a chair for me. “Come, eat some warm chapatis. I made fresh ghee to go along with them.”
“Happy anniversary,” I said as I kissed her and my father on the cheek.
“Happy anniversary, beti,” my father said as he sipped his chai and glanced back at the morning paper.
“It’s not my anniversary, Abba,” I said, sitting down. “Have you wished each other?”
“Oh, Leila. We don’t do this wishing smishing stuff.” My mother waved her arms, blushing. “Besides, that is what tonight is for.” She looked over at my father and smiled. “Thirty years. Can you believe it?”
My father shook his head. “How you lasted with me so long, I have no idea,” he said, laughing.
“You know, Leila,” my mother began. “Twenty-nine years ago, and I can still remember my and your father’s very first anniversary. Do you remember it?” she asked nostalgically.
“Of course I remember, jaan,” my father said, putting down the paper. “We were living in that tiny apartment next to the university.”
“Right, the one with the broken faucets in the bathroom. We could never figure out which was hot or cold! Everything was freezing!”
I smiled as I listened to them recall this story that I had heard countless times over the years.
“Your father was studying late that night, so I wanted to surprise him with something special when he returned.”
&nbs
p; “Your ammi learned early on that I had a weakness for sweets, so that year, she wanted to show me how American she was by making me an American dessert. Cupcakes.” He smiled at the memory.
“I found a cookbook with a recipe for chocolate cupcakes. I went to the grocery and bought all the ingredients on the list. Except, I forgot to buy the measuring spoons. When I went home, I couldn’t understand the teaspoons versus tablespoons,” she explained. “We only had one kind of spoon in the drawer, and I couldn’t tell if it was for the tea or the table.” She placed her hand on her head. “It was so confusing!” she said, laughing. “Anyways, by the time your father came home, he found cupcakes that had exploded in the oven and me crying on the kitchen floor.”
“I had no idea what happened, and when she finally told me, I laughed . . . which made her even more upset!” he said, shaking his head. “But after she finally calmed down, I broke off a piece of her American cupcake from the oven and tried it. It tasted so bad!” He laughed. “But I ate them all, just to keep her heart.”
“And that was the moment.” My mother looked at him, smiling. “That was when I knew that you were the one I wanted to spend every anniversary with for the rest of my life.”
I looked at my parents as they gazed happily into each other’s eyes. It was rare to see them outwardly express their affection for one another—in fact, in my twenty-six years, I couldn’t recall them ever kissing or even holding hands in my presence. However, listening to them reminisce about their life together made me realize that love was meant to be subtle. It wasn’t found in the grand gestures you saw in the movies, but rather in those small moments that might not seem like much to the eye, but meant everything to the heart.
“So that was the moment you first fell in love with Abba?”
My mother blushed and smiled.
“But what about before that?” I asked.
“Before that, he was my husband. I still cared for him, but it was different.”
“Love after marriage. It is the only way we know.” My father bobbled his head. I smiled, remembering our conversation right before I left for India.