After The Honeymoon

11. Small Lies

Omar

Never in my life did I think I would miss a smell so much. That fresh, flowery smell of Madi's shampoo was missing from my life, from my bed and my shower, but not from my memory. The strong yet sweet scent of lilacs in that shampoo was such an apt reflection of who my wife was. No wonder she, and I, liked it so much.

I had admitted that to Madi a few nights ago as I lay in bed alone wishing she was next to me. I had fully expected her to make fun of me then. After all, how anti-masculine could you be to crave a floral scent. Instead, when I came home the next day there was a huge bouquet of lilacs waiting for me at my building's front desk, with a note that said:

'Sending you a small part of me. Love you always, Madi'

In my 29 years of life, I had never handled flowers, let alone a whole bouquet of them and it was quite the learning experience of cutting the stems so they would fit in an empty water bottle. They had filled my apartment with her smell, and if her intention was to make me fall harder in love with her, she had absolutely succeeded.

The sound of a text message on my phone distracted me from the thoughts about my wife. It was Madi's sister Maliha and her husband, Hasan, who had just reached my building and were on their way up. I wasn't entirely sure what Maliha wanted from Madi's closet, but it had something to do with formal wear and her husband's company's social event. Madi had given me more details, but I had promptly forgotten them. And since I was leaving soon to drive to St Louis, I had asked her to come get it while I was still at home.

"Assalam Alaikum Omar bhai," Maliha greeted me cheerfully, as did her husband, before she made a beeline for the guest room closet where Madi stored her formal wear, and Hasan as I chatted about work and life.

"Faraz bhai just finished setting up our Dubai offices..." he was telling me when I zoned out for a few seconds. That man's name still raised my blood pressure. I could never forget what he had done just before Madi and I got married. Pursuing her when she was clearly not interested and then having the audacity to reach out to her with gifts even after we got married. 

Hasan's next words made me focus on him again.

"...he is actually moving back to the US now."

"Why?" The question came out loud and curt. It didn't escape Hasan's notice who seemed taken aback.

"He...uh...will be taking over the telemedicine company we had started during the pandemic," he mumbled.

"I thought that was just a temporary project." I evened out my tone with Hasan, it wasn't his fault if his older brother was a jerk.

"Actually, we realized that there is such a huge need for it especially in rural hospitals that are always scrambling to get enough physicians, that we decided to invest in it as a subsidiary of our main cybersecurity company."

Sheepishly he added, "I was running it, or trying to, while Faraz bhai was in Dubai. But telemedicine is his passion so he'll be taking over the day-to-day operations when he gets back in a couple of weeks."

Telemedicine, the service that he used as a cover to get close to Madi, was his passion? What a load of BS, I thought to myself. 

I might even have lost all restraint and said out loud everything that was coming to my mind, but Maliha walked in to the living room with some dresses on her arm and started chatting with her husband. She was ready to leave, when she noticed the lilac flowers..

"I was so bummed I missed Madi last weekend. We were out of town, unfortunately. I feel like I haven't seen her in ages," she remarked.

"You didn't miss much. Madi had to cancel last weekend. She was called into work at the last minute," I reassured her.