After The Honeymoon

7. Old Saari, New Desires

**Ahem. Steamy scenes ahead***

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart." -Khalil Gibran

Noor

"Come on wear a saari too...please! I really want to wear one to the wedding, but I don't want to be the only one wearing one," Madi's voice rang out of the phone.

"Ok, ok. I get it. You want to impress your husband in a saari. Why don't you just wear a sexy one at home and seduce him instead of dragging me into it too," I teased my friend.

She laughed and defended herself, "Seriously, Noor? That husband of yours is corrupting you. I just don't have anything else to wear that is Chicago summer appropriate."

Frankly, I had doubts about attending Zayd's wedding after my husband offered some unsolicited and cutting advice. Though, on the other hand, having an excuse to spend an afternoon alone with my him was enticing - enough that I had asked one of the nurses we worked with, Ms Sandra, to baby sit Ayah and found myself agreeing to wear a saari. 

What I hadn't told Madi was this, I only possessed one saari. Admittedly, it was a stunning piece, made of white chiffon and adorned with intricate gold beadwork. The blouse, crafted from a matte gold material, used to fit perfectly, but it had been untouched since the Spring Ball during my intern year. As I was trying it on it dawned on me that I was fool to consider my pre- and post-pregnancy body as the same.  

An emergent c-section and a year of breastfeeding Ayah had surely left its mark. 

"Is that what you're wearing to the wedding?" Salman's voice cut through my reminiscence of days gone by.

I was standing there in just the blouse and my pajama bottoms, and turned to see him frowning at the saari itself which was sprawled across our bed. "I remember the day you wore it," he added, without looking at me.

How could I have forgotten that day either? 

Or the way he had looked at me when I had first walked into that ballroom, and the way he made me feel when his hand had slid down my bare arm as we stood alone in the corridor outside?

I knew I shouldn't have been feeling those things pre-marriage, but in a moment of weakness I had, and that was a memory I hung on to even now.

"You do?" I asked him. 

"Yes. It was one of the worst days of my life", he finally looked at me with somber eyes, his mask hiding the rest of his face. "That day I thought I had lost you forever."

Of course, my heart sank. The glimmer of hope I had for his former self to emerge once again dissipated quicker than a wisp of smoke. 

He was back to focusing on the worst of life. Instead of remembering the moments we had shared that day where in retrospect it was so obvious we were crazy about each other, or even the part where he had won an award and almost confessed his feelings to me.

No, he only remembered the part where I had told him that I was marrying someone else, despite the fact that we had been married for almost 3 years now.

Circumstances had forced me to learn patience. Yet, it was moments like these that almost always broke through that patience. Sometimes I just wanted to run away from it all, from the darkness and gloom that my husband always seemed to be submerged in and that I was inadvertently slowly drowning in.

Though, how could I ever abandon him? 

Somehow, from somewhere deep within me, a resolve took hold like it had so many times before. I hadn't given up on him at his worse, I wasn't about to do it now.