Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
The drive from San Jose to Sacramento was almost two hours of suburban wasteland, farms, fast food, and the occasional rest stop. Asma drove with all four of her windows down, the wind rushing by the car the soundtrack to her drive when the Bay Area’s radio stations stopped receiving signal and faded to static. She focused on the freeway ahead of her, a straight shot as far as her eyes could see, her view periodically broken by semitrucks driving too slowly in the fast lane.
Two weeks. It took almost exactly two weeks after Mr. Ibrahim’s heart attack for the doctors to clear him to go back to Sacramento. Just enough time for Asma to break her lease and withdraw her application for the position in the ER.
Asma exited the freeway in Fairfield to stretch her legs. She had left almost two hours later than she planned that morning, when Aunty Bushra insisted on packing a bag full of food for her drive. Asma had told her it wasn’t necessary—it wasn’t long enough to need to stop for food, and there were plenty of In-N-Outs that she’d pass on the road—but Bushra insisted. Between Mr. Ibrahim’s heart attack and Asma’s care of Lubna at the beach, she had been elevated to almost saintlike status in the Qureishis’ home. Asma thanked Aunty Bushra silently as she pulled out a thermos of chai, watching a family at the table next to her sipping remnants of Big Gulps they had picked up from a freeway 7-Eleven.
When the thermos was empty, Asma threw her trash in a nearby bin and pulled onto the freeway again. As she drove, she reflected on the choice she had made. She was leaving the job she wanted and the life she had created, for the responsibility of taking care of her father. Asma could tell Dr. Saucedo was disappointed when she had made the call—a snap decision while in the ER next to her father—but Asma knew it was the right thing to do. And it would make everything easier. Easier to move on from her old life. To not have to see Farooq every time she met the Qureishis for dinner or saw Lubna socially.
But as Asma approached the Sacramento city limits, her resolve started to fade. She had made the decision in the chaos of her father’s hospitalization. Between wrapping things up at work and deconstructing her just-assembled apartment, she’d had no time to sit and think through all the practical and emotional implications of her move. She had no job and no friends. As the weight of it all finally started to settle on her, she resisted the urge to pull off the freeway and head back west.
When she finally arrived at the house, her father was upstairs sleeping. Asma looked in on him and, careful not to wake him, checked his pulse. A normal, steady rhythm. He’d lost a lot of the water weight he’d gained after the surgery to insert a cardiac stent, and his color looked better than it had the day he was discharged. But Asma couldn’t help but feel like this had happened because she hadn’t come with him to Sacramento, hadn’t kept up with monitoring his medical care. Well, that was all about to change, now that Asma was moving in. Her father’s health wasn’t going to deteriorate on her watch.
“How’s cardiac rehab going?” Asma asked Iman, as she unpacked her boxes from her car and stacked them up in the corner of the garage.
“He complains,” Iman replied, watching Asma but making no offer to help. “But I think it’s good for him. Gives him something to do every day besides sleeping and watching TV.”
“And the home-care nurse?”
Iman shrugged. “Seems fine.”
“What about his diet? Is he eating enough? And staying away from fried food?”
“His appetite’s been good, actually. Really, things are going okay. I wish you hadn’t…” Iman trailed off, and Asma straightened, dropping a box on the top of the stack.
“Wish I hadn’t what?”
“I really wish you hadn’t taken up all this room in the garage with your stuff,” Iman replied, sniffing. “I need it for my party supplies. And storage units aren’t that expensive, you know.”
Asma rolled her eyes and walked back to slam her trunk. Welcome home, indeed.
—
“Ugh, there’s so much traffic!” Asma tapped impatiently at the wheel, frustrated by the red brake lights ahead of her. Rehana’s plane had landed a half hour ago, and even though Asma had left Sacramento exceptionally early to make it to San Francisco on time, she was still fifteen minutes away without traffic.
“Don’t worry,” said Fatima, her voice floating out of Asma’s cell phone perched on the dashboard. “It’ll take some time for her to get her luggage.”
Fatima was still at her cousin’s place and she wasn’t budging. Her cousin had said she could stay as long as she wanted, and Fatima told Asma that she fully intended to take her up on that offer. Especially after Salman finally reappeared and reached out to her.
“You should’ve heard him, Asma. Sobbing on the phone—like I cheated on him .”
“Crying out of guilt?”
“You’d think, right? But no, he’s having this midlife crisis—he was blubbering on and on about how he’s always done what’s expected of him, how the pressure was too intense. I was trying to be understanding and part of me felt sorry for him. But another part of me was so angry. I thought, does he even realize who he’s talking to? My entire life has been about doing what was expected of me and I didn’t run off and have an affair.”
“I was just thinking the other day about Columbia.”
“Right? I’m sure that didn’t even cross his mind, he’s so busy wallowing in self-pity,” said Fatima.
Asma hung up and exited the freeway for SFO. A car cut in front of her and Asma honked longer than necessary. Talking about Salman filled Asma with rage. She wanted nothing more than to drive to his house and throttle him. But Asma had been swallowing her anger, trying to listen without judgment as Fatima figured out her next steps. Fatima had her parents on one side telling her to forgive Salman and work things out and her cousin on the other side telling her to drop him. This was something Fatima needed to decide on her own.
By the time Asma made it through the airport traffic and pulled into the terminal, Rehana was already standing curbside with her bags.
Asma jumped out of the car and hugged her aunt. Rehana had cut her impromptu trip short after Mr. Ibrahim’s heart attack, and though they had connected a few times over FaceTime throughout the summer, Asma had longed to have longer conversations. With Asma’s mother gone, Rehana seemed to be the key to Asma’s understanding of her younger years and all the choices that had brought her to where she was.
Rehana settled into the front seat as Asma grabbed her bags from the curb. They were weighed down to the absolute max, and possibly even heavier than that. Likely filled with all the requests Iman and Mr. Ibrahim had sent her over the summer, including custom-tailored clothes and bespoke jewelry.
“Abu and Iman send their salaams and will see you at home.” Asma closed the trunk and got back into the car. “Iman is coordinating a swimming pool housewarming—a pool warming, if you will,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “And Abu was on the phone with his new best friend—Mrs. Dr. Aunty Gulnaz Dadabhoy.” Asma used all of Mrs. Gulnaz’s titles, a hat tip to her father.
Asma pulled away from the curb as the airport traffic police made their way menacingly toward her.
“MashAllah, it’s good to have family in the area, especially during a time like this,” Rehana said.
“Yes, especially such distinguished family.” Asma said with a smile. “Did Abu tell you who else they’ve reconnected with?”
“Omar Khan?” Rehana asked, with a glance at Asma. “Yes, he mentioned it. I always liked Omar.”
Asma stared at her aunt incredulously.
“You did?”
“He was a very nice boy. It’s not his fault what happened with his father.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that he’s interested in being friends with us again?”
“I think it’s been good for your father and Iman.”
“Because Omar is still single?”
“Because it’s nice to be in touch with old friends.”
“I don’t know about that,” Asma said. “Not when the old friend screwed you over.”
“That’s not a nice word, Asma,” Rehana admonished. “And people make mistakes. We should be willing to forgive.”
“Of course we should,” Asma said, her mind no longer on Omar. The conversation had reminded her of her aunt’s previous judgments of Farooq. “But only if the person admits that they were wrong and asks for forgiveness.”
Asma didn’t have to say it. Rehana knew exactly what she was talking about.
“You want to talk about this again?” Rehana asked. “I thought your graduation would have settled things. You wouldn’t have become a doctor if you’d married Farooq Waheed.”
“No, I don’t want to talk about it,” Asma said, immediately regretting that she had steered the conversation in this direction. Though she disagreed with her aunt. Who said Farooq would have kept her from becoming a doctor? He’d been nothing but supportive when they were together in college. Asma knew they could have made it work, somehow. But there was no point in imagining the life they could have had if they’d remained together in college—Farooq was with Lubna now. That life was an impossibility.
They rode for a few minutes in silence.
“You don’t know I wouldn’t have become a doctor,” Asma said, changing her mind. She did want to talk about it. “Your concern was that he didn’t have money. Look how everything turned out.”
“MashAllah, he did well—but none of us knew that was what would happen.”
“I knew that he was a good guy.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to support you.”
“So now that he has money, he’s suddenly marriage material?”
“Asma, it’s all written. What is meant for you will not miss you.”
“What does that mean?”
“If he is your naseeb, it will happen.”
“It’s too late. He and Lubna are practically engaged,” Asma replied. Rehana didn’t reply, she only clicked her tongue, watching the cars crisscross on the highway in front of them.
Asma stared at the road ahead of her, clenching the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white. A slow-burning anger bubbled up inside her, her excitement over seeing her aunt extinguished.
Rehana had torpedoed her relationship with Farooq all those years ago and, despite how everything had turned out, she still couldn’t apologize or admit that she was wrong.
As Asma reached the freeway on-ramp, she pressed down on the accelerator, glad to find the freeway empty. At that moment, she would have rather been anywhere than in the car with her aunt.