Chapter 3
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The dining hall was beautiful, with low-lit chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling and fairy lights that blinked along the windows. Elaborate orchid centerpieces, Ammi’s favorite flower, rested on each table. Along the back wall, silver chafing dishes were being set up.
Hena stalled mid-step when she saw a man in a gray shalwar kamiz sitting on a dais, strumming his sitar.
He wasn’t the same musician who’d performed at her wedding, but the music was achingly similar.
In fact, everything here was. The music.
The festive colors. The food. It was like time traveling back to a place she’d never wished to revisit.
And the people. They weren’t just similar.
They were one and the same. She knew everyone seated at these tables—the honorary aunties and uncles she grew up with as well as her actual relatives.
Three years ago, they’d been at her own nuptials.
Dancing. Laughing. Tonight, they were silent.
Their bodies turned in their chairs, staring at her as though she were a ghost returning to haunt them.
She spotted her mother in the crowd and drew in a sharp breath.
Ammi had always been a small woman; Lulu and Hena had gotten their height from their father—the only thing of his she was glad to have.
But Ammi, in a designer silk shalwar kamiz, seemed smaller than she remembered.
As though she had curled into herself. Despite her tastefully applied makeup and concealer, her eyes were undeniably sunken, her lips thin.
When her gaze locked onto Hena’s, they grew thinner still.
Hena heard whispers of conversation as she maneuvered through the crowds.
“The gall! Crashing this wedding after everything she’s done to this family.”
“She’s hardly crashing it. It’s her sister’s nuptials. They had no choice but to invite her, didn’t they?”
“Not after what she did. Hanifa said they explicitly told her not to come. Poor Irum. This could trigger her all over again. Having to be in the same room while her brother is dead and gone.”
“We don’t know that he’s…”
“Don’t be na?ve. I have half a mind to call the police right now. We don’t want a repeat of last time, do we? All that blood…”
Hena kept moving, her pace steady, her expression neutral.
The police had long ago ruled that the DNA on the bloody knife was not Nasir’s.
Everyone here knew it. Not that the truth mattered.
They were looking for a spectacle, not facts.
When the worst night of her life had come to pass, they’d stood on the sidelines as they did now, watching with horrified expressions while trying to mask their delight.
Heiress to a family hotel fortune taken down a peg or two.
They wanted to trigger her into turning around. Snapping. Giving them more fodder for gossip. Though their words clawed against her skin, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
She was nearly at her mother’s chair—
“Shaheen is coming to the shaadi. Can you imagine?”
Hena tensed. Nasir’s mother? It was baseless gossip. It had to be. Irum being there was bad enough, but facing her missing fiancé’s mother after their last interaction? Her skin prickled at the thought.
One thing at a time. Right now, she needed to face her own mother.
Approaching Ammi, she saw the breathing tube in her nose. The oxygen tank by her side. She was in a wheelchair. Hena felt light-headed. So, this was real. This was happening. Her mother was dying.
Ammi’s eyes grew glassy as they met Hena’s, but her expression remained impassive.
No hint of a smile. Still, Hena had to greet her.
Hug her. People were watching this first encounter after three years.
They’d be storing every detail to break down later.
She put her arms around Ammi and gave her a tentative embrace.
All she felt were bones. When she pulled back, her mother’s hand lingered on her arm.
“What do you mean, showing up in this outfit?” she asked.
Welcome home, Hena. This outfit cost as much as any designer shalwar kamiz, but it wasn’t good enough because it wasn’t desi.
“Who is this I see?” a voice chirped.
Khala Simki. Ammi’s sister. Weaving between the tables, she hurried toward Hena much like the last time they’d seen each other—when she’d raced up to Hena to wrench the knife from her hands, steering her to the sofa, pressing a glass of water into her grip while Hena sat stunned by the reality of her new life.
There was no hint of that night in Khala’s eyes as she drew near. Instead, she pulled her into a tight hug, much like the ones she’d given Hena all her life. With Khala’s arms around her, Hena’s chest loosened the littlest bit. She had always been the light to her mother’s darkness.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Khala said.
“Look at her outfit.” Ammi jabbed a finger at Hena. “She does it to hurt me, you know.”
Hena clenched her jaw. Here she was, trying not to make waves.
Trying to make sure the crowd ogling them didn’t have more gossip to latch on to.
Meanwhile, her mother couldn’t care less what people overheard.
Fine. If she didn’t care, why should Hena?
She was about to speak, to let Ammi know that when it came to the ability to hurt someone, she reigned supreme, but her aunt squeezed her shoulder meaningfully.
“No need to get upset,” Khala reassured her sister. “We’ll go shopping tomorrow. Luxe Boutique has some lovely new arrivals. The bridal shower isn’t until late afternoon anyhow, so we’ll head over first thing in the morning.”
“Luxe Boutique? I don’t want to—” Hena began.
“You will,” Ammi said.
Just like that, she was seven again, cowering in a corner of her bedroom while her mother berated her for a botched piano recital. Except Hena wasn’t a child anymore. She was thirty. Though her mother’s voice still lived inside her, she could no longer force Hena to do anything.
Lulu stood a few paces away, her eyes darting between them. Hena bit back her words. She wouldn’t add more to her sister’s plate. One disastrous wedding in this family was enough. But her hunch had been right. It was painfully clear her mother didn’t want her there.
A svelte woman with a shock of pink hair introduced herself as the wedding planner and informed them dinner was ready. People began lining up to eat. Good. The sooner Hena could get a bite to eat and escape to her room, the better. This week would be a marathon, not a sprint.
The musician took a break, and Hena joined the dinner line as Irum adjusted a projector.
Moments later, photos of Lulu and Khaled glowed against the back wall.
The proposal at her family home, her mother and his parents, their faces lit up, standing alongside the two of them.
A montage of moments Hena had missed. The couple was seated at a table near the front.
An attendant brought them their plated meals.
Khaled whispered something in her sister’s ear.
She laughed and touched his elbow tenderly.
A pang went through Hena. She had once been them. Blissfully happy at her own welcome party three years ago. Oblivious to all that was to come.
Pulling out her phone, she downloaded the wedding app. As she waited for it to load, she spotted Haris.
He was here.
Of course he was. His cousin was marrying her sister. She’d known him all her life. He’d been a grade ahead of her in high school. At every childhood potluck. Her first kiss when she was seventeen.
The best man at her wedding.
Nasir’s closest friend.
He’d clocked her too and was walking toward her. She braced for impact.
She still remembered the cream kurta he wore at her wedding.
The pink carnation pinned to his lapel. The phone pressed to his ear as he kept trying Nasir early on, back when people were more confused and less frantic over his absence.
He was as boyishly cute as ever, but clean shaven now, and his light brown hair was longer, a taper cut.
What surprised her more than anything else was that he was smiling. At her.
“It’s great to see you,” he said once they were face-to-face.
They hugged. When he pulled back, she studied his expression. He seemed genuine. Was it possible he didn’t hate her?
“It’s great to see you too,” she told him.
“I hear you’re in California?” At her surprised expression, he laughed. “The CIA wishes they could be as in the know as our community.”
He was right. She had scrubbed her personal details from the internet—it was safer that way—but she was back in the land of no secrets.
“I’m in San Francisco,” she told him. “No humidity or mosquitoes. Highly recommend.”
“San Fran?” He let out a low whistle. “You handling those hills okay?”
“I didn’t say it was perfect out there,” she replied, to which Haris laughed.
“I’m glad you did it. You’d been wanting to move to the West Coast forever. Nasir used to say—” He paused, and his smile faltered. “Sorry. Seeing you after all this time…it’s hard not to think of him.”
It would have been disingenuous to ignore the Nasir-sized elephant in the room. Especially with Haris. She had braced herself for it, but hearing his name spoken aloud after all this time still sent shock waves through her.
For a beat, neither of them said anything. Hena cleared her throat.
“How’s Chloe?” she asked.
He grimaced. “I guess it has been a while. We didn’t make it. Turns out my mother was right after all. Our divorce was finalized last year.”
“Oh, Haris.” She reached out and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”
She’d attended his wedding four years ago—an intimate affair on a yacht in Biscayne Bay. She’d worn a pale pink sari and borrowed her mother’s favorite diamond necklace. Nasir, in his pin-striped tux, had been best man.
“Don’t be sorry,” Haris said. “It was rough going at first, but it’s for the best.”