Yours, Eventually

Chapter One

One

The Qawwali singer hit the note, then held it. He sang for so long that the audience stopped breathing. Finally, he inhaled. Murmurs rose from the crowd, murmurs that turned into cheers as he started up again, this time accompanied by the twelve-piece ensemble sitting on the floor around him on a stage adorned with swaths of silver and gold fabric. On cue—or perhaps because of the enthusiasm of the musicians and the vibrato of the singer—the tiny white lights inside the lanterns strung from one end of the stage to the other began to flicker.

Asma barely noticed the lights. Or how the guests packed into the backyard of her family’s Palo Alto McMansion had already lost interest in the musicians. They had turned their attention back to their plates piled high with fried appetizers swimming in pools of green and red chutney. Aunties gossiped about the latest engagements and other people’s children while uncles debated foreign policy and conspiracy theories.

Asma couldn’t take her eyes off her phone. Her older sister, Iman, had scheduled this party without checking the dates with her first, and Asma was on call for the hospital tonight. But instead of being an inconvenience, the prospect of being called away to work was a potential relief. Though she had grown up surrounded by this kind of money, and all the glitz, drama, and gossip that came with it, a night of accidental injuries and belligerent drunks in the emergency room was definitely more Asma’s scene. She was bracing herself for intrusive questions from their guests. About her outfit, appearance, marital status—or lack thereof—and praying that she could escape to work before the onslaught.

Asma glanced up and saw her father’s good friend and long-suffering accountant, Mr. Shafiq, weaving through the crowd toward her. He was dodging guests and buffet tables crowded with silver chafing dishes of meat. Lamb, beef, chicken, goat, fish—was that duck? There was much more food than they had agreed on in their meetings with the caterer. Iman must have gone back and increased the order.

“Qawwali singers? This is a retirement party, not a wedding!” Mr. Shafiq’s usually slick and careful comb-over was tousled, and there was a deep crease between his eyebrows. He passed a crumpled napkin between his hands.

“Uncle, I had no idea this would be so over-the-top.”

“Asma! You said you’d handle it!”

“I said I’d try! But have you ever known anyone who can rein in my father and Iman when they get going?”

“This won’t do, this just won’t do.” The napkin in Mr. Shafiq’s hand was in damp tatters. Asma gently pried it from his clenched fist and put her hand on his arm.

“Uncle, please go and eat. There’s nothing more we can do about it tonight.”

Asma pushed Mr. Shafiq in the direction of the buffet. She understood his low-simmering panic about her family’s finances; she shared it, in fact. Her father, Muhammad Ibrahim, was in denial and still behaving as if his rug import business were at the height of its success, when really the family was teetering on the edge of financial ruin. It had recently come to light that Mr. Ibrahim had put most of the family’s money in an investment fund that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. He’d lost nearly everything, and his only recourse now was to shut down his business and sell off its remaining assets, a move he was trying to cover with his supposed “early retirement.” Now, however, it seemed his lavish retirement party might bankrupt them yet.

“ What are you wearing?”

Asma turned at the sound of her younger sister’s voice. Maryam was standing behind her, arms crossed, a pointed look on her face.

Asma had been so convinced that she’d be called into work that she hadn’t bothered to figure out an outfit until just minutes before the first guest arrived.

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

Asma smoothed down the fabric of her beige salwar kameez. It had seemed fine when she put it on: it was the kind of understated outfit that demonstrated her lack of interest in the latest trends, because Asma had more important things to care about. But now, standing next to her younger sister, who was wearing a bright turquoise number custom-fit to her petite frame, Asma felt dowdy and decidedly out of fashion.

Maryam responded with an eye roll.

“Where’s Iman?” Asma asked, glancing around the yard. “This is not what we discussed at all.”

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Maryam said. “Except that cow Aunty Uzma was just asking me when I’m going to have more kids. I swear, if another aunty asks me if I have good news…” Maryam trailed off with a threatening shake of her head, her hair, recently cut into a sharp A-line bob, catching in her gold hoop earrings. “I don’t know why she’s bugging me when you and Iman aren’t even married.”

“She hasn’t found me yet.” Asma checked her phone again. Nothing. Could the ER really be that slow, tonight of all nights? “Or maybe she thinks I’m a lost cause.”

“Especially in that outfit,” Maryam said, attention already elsewhere. “ What is Hassan wearing?”

Asma was relieved that Maryam’s husband was now the focus of her fashion policing. Hassan stood across the yard, deep in conversation with a group of men. He wore a well-tailored charcoal suit, his hair covered in so much gel it looked as though he had just stepped out of the shower.

“Is that a trick question?” asked Asma.

“That’s not the suit I laid out for him on the bed.”

“You lay his clothes out for him?”

“I told him to wear his navy suit today because he needs to wear this suit tomorrow for his new headshots.”

“He can just wear it again tomorrow.”

Maryam looked at Asma like she’d suggested Hassan pose nude for the portrait. “You’re joking, right?”

Maryam stalked off toward her husband, narrowly missing the caterer rolling an ice sculpture of their father toward the stage. The sculpture had already started to melt, water dripping down the nose as though it were running. Perhaps for the best, Asma thought—her father was terribly self-conscious about the size of his nose. Iman trailed the caterer, clutching the pallu of her silver chiffon sari, which had once belonged to their mother. Iman looked elegant and perfectly put together, as she always did. Her long hair was pulled back into a soft chignon at the nape of her neck and her sari draped perfectly, accentuating her figure, kept in shape thanks to hours upon hours of hot yoga. Though Maryam had been the first Ibrahim daughter to marry and have children, Iman was still the clear favorite for a good match, despite her being a year shy of the dreaded thirty. She’d nearly been engaged to the son of Mr. Ibrahim’s financial advisor before the Ponzi scheme revelation had severed their relationship, and she was now a prime—if somewhat aged—marriage prospect for the men of their community.

“Have you seen Rehana Aunty? I’m so pissed.” Iman searched the backyard for their aunt, her thick, meticulously shaped eyebrows narrowed into a frown.

“Iman,” Asma said, ignoring her question. “Did you increase the catering order? I thought we agreed you’d stick to the budget.”

“You worry too much,” Iman replied. “It’ll pay off in exposure. Like a business expense.” In the past few years, Iman had become the premier event planner in their community, and their family functions were always her signature events. But now, Asma was beginning to fear that, like their father, neither of her sisters really believed the gravity of the family’s financial situation, despite the accounting books and spreadsheets that Asma and Mr. Shafiq had gone over with them several times.

“Uncle Shafiq was very concerned,” Asma said, but Iman was distracted, wrapped up in some kind of drama that was unfolding in their midst.

“You know how Rehana Aunty insisted I invite Aunty Saira because we were inviting Aunty Shaheen?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Well, I said fine because I just could not deal with the drama, but I was very careful to make sure they knew that Aunty Saira’s daughter wasn’t invited. And yet…here she is.”

Iman motioned to a group of young women a few yards away, though Asma wasn’t sure which woman was the specific target of Iman’s ire. It was difficult for her to keep track of who was in or out of Iman’s good graces, or the ever-evolving social dynamics that governed events like this.

“Does it matter?” Asma asked. “We have plenty of food and more than enough room.”

“Of course it matters! That trick didn’t invite me to her graduation party.”

“That was five years ago, you need to let it go,” Asma suggested, though she knew it was probably futile. As usual, the guest list for this event was less about gathering their closest family and friends than it was about payback: rewarding the loyalty of those who had invited the Ibrahims to their special occasions over the years and exacting revenge on those who hadn’t.

“The nerve of her, standing there in the middle of all those aunties with her stupid fake smile—she’s totally here to get rishtas, but nobody’s going to marry her, she’s such a skank.” Iman glared at the women. “Remember that fat white guy she was hooking up with in college? I should ask her if they’re still in touch!”

“Iman!” Asma admonished, but it was too late—Iman was already headed in their direction.

Asma wondered how much damage control she’d have to do with their guests after the party. Perhaps packing up what was sure to be tons of leftover meat for any offended parties would be a sufficient peace offering.

Asma felt her phone, tucked into her pocket, vibrate. Finally! A text from the hospital.

She read the message eagerly, hoping she was being summoned so she could leave. But, to her disappointment, it was just a question about a patient’s medicine dosage that only required a text reply.

“Excuse me, excuse me, dear friends.”

Mr. Ibrahim was standing on the stage, tapping the microphone. He was wearing a spotless cream sherwani that contrasted spectacularly with the mop of hair on his head, an unsubtle jet black that could only come from a box. He beamed at the guests and pulled his glasses down on his nose in a way Asma knew he thought looked professorial and made his nose look smaller. At the sound of his voice, the crowd filtered out from the house and across the backyard to congregate near the stage. Mr. Ibrahim waited until he held their undivided attention.

“My dear, honored guests. Thank you so much for joining me on this auspicious occasion.” Mr. Ibrahim loved the limelight, the captive audience of all the important need-to-know people of the community. “I hope you’ve all had enough to eat.”

Mr. Ibrahim gestured to the buffet stations and paused—a beat too long, thought Asma—until the guests had turned to admire the spread.

“When I started my company, I had no idea that it would grow to be such an esteemed, respected, and profitable enterprise. I have enjoyed the hard work of bringing our beautiful Pakistani carpets into the homes of so many.”

Asma, who knew the truth, suppressed an eye roll: her father hated to work.

Mr. Ibrahim was used to a life of luxury and ample wealth. Born into a rich Pakistani family, he had immigrated to the United States almost thirty years earlier, bringing with him the capital to start an American branch of his family’s rug export business. The company’s wild success, and sterling reputation as an ethical business whose gorgeous, intricately designed, and handcrafted rugs were made from naturally sourced materials, had little to do with Mr. Ibrahim. It had all been thanks to the shrewd fiscal management and innate business instincts of the company’s behind-the-scenes CFO, Mrs. Ibrahim.

Asma suppressed a grimace as Mr. Ibrahim took the credit for her mother’s success in front of all these people. After Mrs. Ibrahim’s death, when Asma was just fourteen, the company had coasted by for years on its early gains—that is, until Mr. Ibrahim decided to take its financial matters into his own hands. And all it took was one terrible investment, supported by a man he trusted like family, to bring it all down around them. But their guests knew nothing of the family’s financial situation, or the fact that they were about to rent out this very McMansion to stay afloat; the crowd looked adoringly at Mr. Ibrahim as he gave his “retirement” speech.

“I’m looking forward to starting this new chapter of my life and spending more time with my family,” Mr. Ibrahim continued. “But it’s on occasions such as these that the absence of my beloved wife is felt most greatly.” His voice broke slightly. “May Allah continue to shower his blessings on her.”

Asma flinched at the mention of her mother while the crowd whispered ameens and InshAllahs. In the chaos of figuring out the details of the company’s loss and decisions related to their finances, Asma had been careful to avoid thinking too much about her mother. What she would have thought about this premature retirement, renting out the house, moving—Asma’s inability to keep things together. Asma saw her father’s sister, Rehana, just offstage, draw the edge of her dupatta to her eye. Aunty must be thinking about her mother too. Rehana had moved to the U.S. over two decades earlier after the death of her husband, and she and Asma’s mother had quickly become inseparable. Asma felt a kinship with Rehana at moments like these, when it seemed that Rehana still felt Mrs. Ibrahim’s loss just as acutely as Asma did.

“She would’ve been so grateful. There are so many of you to thank. I start first with my dear sister, Rehana.”

Rehana nodded with a strained smile.

“And my beautiful daughters. My eldest, Iman. She put this wonderful party together. Such taste, such vision. No expense spared.”

Iman waved to the crowd like a beauty pageant contestant perched atop a convertible in a small-town parade.

“And of course Asma and Maryam. I think you all know my youngest, Maryam, is married to Doctor Hassan Qureishi.” Mr. Ibrahim lingered on the word doctor for so long that no one would have guessed that Hassan was only a dentist. “Maryam’s given me the best retirement present any man could ask for: two grandsons!”

The audience laughed. Maryam beamed at her father. Next to her, Hassan looked embarrassed. Their sons, at Iman’s insistence, were out of sight, parked in the guest room with pizza and iPads.

“Thank you so much for coming!”

Mr. Ibrahim raised his water glass as if to toast. Rehana looked across the backyard at Asma, alarmed.

“Asma! Say something about Asma,” Rehana hissed under her breath. What was supposed to be a whisper was picked up by the microphone and amplified across the backyard.

Asma felt herself flush, mortified. It wasn’t unusual for her to feel invisible next to her sisters: Iman, the beauty, and Maryam, already married and a mother of two. She knew her father would have preferred her to be more like them, instead of studious and professionally driven. But it was another thing entirely to have it pointed out to her, especially in the middle of a party. Part of her wanted to remind her father that she could have been married years before Maryam, if it weren’t for his disapproval. She had to focus for a moment to swallow that old bitterness back.

“Oh, yes, Asma. My middle one,” Mr. Ibrahim said with a big smile and a flourish of his hand in Asma’s direction. “She’s a doctor too!”

The guests looked around as Asma emerged from the shadows and forced a smile, the shreds of Mr. Shafiq’s napkin falling to the ground from her hands.

—

Asma wolfed down the cake, a miniature replica of a Persian rug. According to Iman, communal sheet cakes were so out and individual miniature sheet cakes were so in . Asma had protested the cost of the cakes and vowed that she wouldn’t try any on principle, but now she was eating to hide her embarrassment. In the minutes after her father’s gaffe, he had paraded her around the backyard, personally introducing her to all the guests.

“She works so hard, we never see her! You know she’s always taken her studies so seriously!”

Asma needed no introduction to their friends. She was widely known as the glue that held the Ibrahim family together. The one who made sure the vendors were paid after Iman’s lavish functions and the one who kept everything running smoothly during periods of transition, like Maryam’s marriage and the birth of her twins. And while normally a family such as theirs—a wealthy, silly patriarch with two unmarried adult daughters—would be the subject of much derision in their social circles, the Ibrahims were largely immune. Asma knew it was because Mr. Ibrahim refused to remarry, despite the best attempts of family and friends. His loyalty to his dead wife earned him high respect from the aunties, who all lived with the suspicion that their own husbands, if given the opportunity, would remarry within days of their passing. And likely to much younger women.

Asma had managed to escape her father and tuck herself into a corner of the backyard to text her best friend, Fatima, and plot her exit. She’d fake a call from work and sit in the hospital parking lot all night if she had to. She was so focused on her phone that she hadn’t noticed Rehana come up beside her.

“Asma beti, have you spoken to Uzma Aunty yet?”

“No, thank God,” Asma replied, already wary of where this conversation might be leading.

“She wants to introduce you to her nephew—he’s a doctor, a dermatologist. Strange specialty for a man.” Rehana lowered her voice. “He went to medical school in the Caribbean so, you know…” Her aunt made a face like she smelled something unpleasant, the kind of expression Asma recognized from her father. While Mr. Ibrahim had grown somewhat stout in his advancing age, and sported deep shadows under his eyes, the family resemblance the siblings shared was always uncanny. Rehana, on the other hand, was aging gracefully, with only the barest strands of silver threading through her dark hair and a perfectly unlined forehead. Asma suspected Botox.

“Uzma, Uzma!” Rehana called out to a squat lady hovering around the buffet, before Asma could stop her. The only thing Aunty Uzma enjoyed more than talking about single women behind their backs was badgering them to their faces about their marital prospects.

Call now! Asma texted Fatima, then turned up her ringer.

“Aunty, it’s the hospital,” she said, waving her phone in the air when it rang less than a few seconds later. “I have to take this.”

Asma grabbed another miniature cake off the tray of a passing waiter and took a bite before answering. She would never admit it to Iman, but these cakes were delicious.

“You’re still at the party,” Fatima said, because she and Asma never bothered with the formalities of hello.

“I’m stress eating,” said Asma, her mouth full. “Just had a near miss with Aunty Uzma.”

“She’s the worst,” said Fatima. “She told me that I should watch what I’m eating because it’s making my face break out.”

“How’s the wedding?” Asma asked. “I can barely hear you.” Fatima’s voice was faint over the din of music and people talking loudly on both ends of the phone.

“Boring. Please stop me the next time I agree to go anywhere with my parents when Salman is working late.”

“I can’t believe I haven’t been called into work yet,” Asma replied. “If I’d known I’d actually have to stay here and make small talk, I would have dragged you here instead to keep me company.”

“I’ve been following the hashtags on Instagram,” said Fatima. “Iman did not come to play.”

“I’ll grab you a swag bag on my way out. In case you run out of gold-flecked lavender bath salts.”

“So listen, before you go. I need to tell you something,” said Fatima. “I just overheard some interesting information.”

“Gossip?”

“Information. Gossip. Whatever.” Fatima’s voice dropped so low that Asma had to press her phone closer to her head and stick a finger in her open ear. “Don’t freak out.”

“I’m not going to freak out,” said Asma. “When have I ever freaked out about goss—”

“It’s about Farooq.”

Asma swallowed hard, the cake she’d eaten forming into a rock in her stomach at the sound of her ex-fiancé’s name.

“What? Farooq?” she repeated. It was the first time she’d said his name aloud in years, and it caught in her throat. She broke out into a sweat and wiped a damp palm on the side of her outfit, inadvertently smearing a blob of icing onto her clothes.

“These aunties were talking about him. They were saying that—Ammi, I’m on the phone.”

Fatima interrupted herself before she could finish.

“They were saying what, Fatima?” Asma asked urgently.

“Asma, give me a second.” Asma heard the phone muffle and Fatima greeting someone. “Salaam, Aunty. No, InshAllah soon. Please pray for us.”

Asma felt like she might throw up. News about Farooq could only mean one thing. After all these years, the worst had finally happened. He was getting married.

Asma’s phone beeped. The hospital, of course, right when she was in the middle of something else.

“Fatima, hold on,” she said, though her friend was still talking to someone else on the other end of the line.

Asma could barely focus on what the nurse was saying but gathered that she needed to go in. But instead of relief at the out she’d been waiting for all evening, Asma only felt cold dread as she switched back to the other line.

“Fatima—I have to go. Quickly! Tell me what you were going to say about Far—” But she caught herself from saying his name out loud as Rehana and Uzma appeared next to her.

“Never mind, just text me!”

“What are you wearing?” Uzma took a critical look at Asma as she hung up the phone, her eyes resting on the icing stain on the side of Asma’s outfit. Uzma turned to Rehana. “I told you that my sister sells the latest fashions at her shop in Fremont, she didn’t have to wear such an old, stained suit.”

“You know these girls,” Rehana replied. “They all have their own styles.”

“This isn’t a style,” Uzma said, wagging her finger at Asma’s clothes.

“I’m sorry, Aunty, I’ve just been called into the hospital,” Asma said. “Emergencies, you know?”

Asma mumbled goodbye salaams before either of the women could protest, then sprinted toward the house, too distracted to even be all that offended by Aunty Uzma.

The kitchen, ground zero for the party, was a disaster. Platters spilled out of the ovens lining the wall, chafing dishes were piled up on top of one another in the sink, and the doors of the fridge protruded open from the food stuffed in it. A pink liquid was oozing out of a foil container and dripping down the side of the island, forming a puddle and matching shoe prints on the kitchen floor. Asma cringed inwardly at the prospect of making sure the place was spotless before the real estate agent began showing it to potential renters.

Asma weaved through the tumult and slipped out the front door only to be greeted by an equally chaotic sight. Cars were parked every which way on their front lawn and in their driveway, which wound down the hill and around a huge marble fountain shooting water once again after years of drought-time disuse. She craned her neck and saw her reliable, beat-up black Camry parked near the garage door, pinned in by a row of cars.

“Excuse me.” She waved over the young man working at the valet station. “That’s mine.”

As Asma waited for the valet to extricate her car, she pulled out her phone. No text yet from Fatima.

HELLO?!!! Asma typed.

Sorry! Aunties were hovering , Fatima replied a minute later.

So??? Asma stared impatiently at the typing bubble in Fatima’s text window.

Farooq’s startup just sold for half a BILLION dollars!

Fatima’s text popped up on Asma’s screen as she heard a huge, cracking explosion behind her. Asma yelled and grabbed her head, the sound so loud and close that she was convinced she had been hit by whatever exploded. More blasts followed, this time in rapid succession as bright flashes cut across the lawn. Asma dropped to the ground, her heart pounding in her ears along with the deafening bang of another, larger explosion.

After a moment, she peered up from the ground to see the sky above their house lit up with fireworks. Disoriented, she needed a moment for things to register. She vaguely remembered her father saying that he wanted a party with “all the fireworks.” At the time, she had been amused at his misuse of the phrase the works . Clearly Iman had taken the request seriously.