What does it mean to love? How much of yourself are you willing to lose for love?
Rida marries Aqib because he loves her. Khaled let's go of Rida because he loves her. In a tale of heartbreak, loss and struggle, exists hope, happiness and new love.
Three months was a minute fraction in a life of twenty-three years, but time was an abstract concept anyway. Someone could make you feel something in a minute, which another couldn't in years. You could leave behind a habit you had your entire life, and adopt a new one in a day. You moved on and replaced, you shifted skins and shapes and became someone new again and again. Yet, there were parts of you that didn't change, couldn't change no matter what you did or what happened to you.
I tried to hold onto that.
I made a long list of things I knew Rida liked, and then tried to fit them in her days purely with the intention of helping her move on. Aqib was gone, but she wasn't. Our beliefs dictated that her separation from him was transient, she would be reuniting with him in the afterlife. The wait was only lifelong, and regardless of how quick the years seemed to go by, a lifelong was a long way to go.
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"Get more," I gestured to Kainat and Ifra, leaning against my bike.
"I think these should be enough, Khaled bhai," Kainat insisted, looking at the full bag of mangoes.
"Throw in one more," I said. What if one more mango could make the difference between happy and sad?
"She's going to get sick," Ifra whispered. "Api never denies herself a mango."
Good, I thought, starting the bike. Mangoes might remind her of how beautiful life was. It might remind her of all the summers she spent before Aqib, of all the happy moments she had before him, and that all of it was just an arm's length away even today. Nothing needed to be changed. She was here with us, and Aqib could simply be a bad dream she woke up from.
The girls raced towards the elevator hauling their book bags, while I parked the bike in our allotted garage and brought the clear bags of mangoes. A white sheet that covered a tall storage shelf in one corner of the room had lifted to the side by the wind storms earlier that month, exposing golden cane baskets that we had used to distribute wedding favors at Rida's wedding. I set down the mangoes to cover the baskets, hiding another reminder of the past.
I heard the whir of the garage door closing followed by a familiar voice calling my name.
"Faisal bhai," I whispered, watching him trot over to me.
"Khaled! How are you?" He patted my shoulder warmly. "How's study prep going, huh? When can we see you become the next commissioner?"
"You are very kind, bhai. I have a long way to go." I shifted the bags of mangoes from one hand to the other. My civil service exam was scheduled three months from that day, a total of eight months after I had begun my preparations. It was common knowledge that most applicants did not get through the exam in their first attempt, and yet I hoped my extended studying would give me an advantage.
"Allah kamyabi thay," Faisal bhai from the neighboring building said. He followed by questions about Mamoo, his new job, settling in, and some comments about the weather, before he got to the crux of the matter and asked, "It is a bit of a personal question, but my wife has been pushing me to ask you...is your mother still pursuing Rizvi bhai's daughter from building 57?"
