Mending Broken Hearts

12. Evidence

Two Weeks Later

September 27th, 2019

Madiha

"Madi, I wasn't lying", he said in an irritated voice, "I just woke up late and was disoriented, but I did pray Fajr. I'll talk to your father myself and admit that I made a mistake. So just let it go. Ok?"

That is what Jawad had said when I confronted him on the phone, just hours before my family was showered with bouquets of flowers and a cake that said 'I am sorry'. 

"Madiha beta, it sounds possible to me. He said he was praying Fajr but you know sometimes people pray Fajr late. That's not a reason to call off a Nikah. God knows we've all missed our prayers now and again"

This is what Abu had said when I went to him later that evening. 

"Come on Madiha. Excuses karna bus karo. Kabhi na kabhi tou tum ne shaadi karni hai. Dekho woh sorry bhi keh raha hai"

(Stop making excuses. You will have to marry his some day. Look he is even saying sorry)

That was Ami when she overheard me complaining to Abu. 

And I was back to square one, where Jawad was two steps ahead of me and I felt shackled to a life I had no control over. On the face of it everything was as it should be in a shaadi wala ghar on the eve of the Nikah. Our house though small and in a simple middle-class neighborhood was brimming with friends and family, as much as it was with bouquets of carnations and chrysanthemums. Food was being offered to anyone who had even had an iota of space left in their stomachs, after being fed by my mother all day long. She was stressed and she took it all out in the kitchen and on poor Maliha and Moin who were tasked with helping her. 

My father was busy in keeping up face in front of Jawad's family. I didn't blame him. His extended family was finally visiting from Pakistan after 30 years. Sure, they were his cousins and not his own siblings, who had refused to let my father bear the financial burden of airfare between Pakistan and US. 

Yet, they were family. The only ties he had to a country he had left behind almost thirty years ago with a two suitcases, a newlywed wife and a dreamy vision to make something of himself in a foreign land. Looking around our house that evening, and despite the impending doom I felt weighing me down, I had to admit that my father had achieved what he wanted. 

Financial stability, and children that had accomplished more than most of his relatives back home. 

Abu was the star of his family now. A fact that was well appreciated by Jawad's family as they heaped praised on my parents. My parents glowed in response and I kept my façade on, because I had never seen my parents this happy. 

I couldn't be the oldest daughter who broke their heart. Especially, when the only thing that held me back was a fleeting sense of comfort wrapped in a warm hug and whispered words. But that was all a mirage. I knew that now, and I willed myself to be ok with letting it go. 

Though, even as one of my mother's friends put henna on my hands cracks were developing in the façade that I had so bravely put on. Defiance seeped in. Courage took a hold. 

Drop the act, a voice told me.  

Just then Jawad sauntered in through the front door along with a man who I recognized as the friend in Chicago who had recently gotten married. Dressed in black shalwar kameez, Jawad's straight black hair was gelled back to perfection and his clean shaven aristocratic features might as well have put a spotlight on him straight from heaven.