Chapter 5
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Hena had wondered how Lulu was going to keep the wedding events distinct when every single one took place at the same resort, but she shouldn’t have underestimated her little sister.
Unlike the welcome party, which had taken place in the dining hall, the bridal shower was set on the resort’s oversized back patio, flanked with lush, towering palm trees.
Round tables draped in pastel linens sat beneath a covered awning adorned with lights and woven through with pale pink flowers. It was well done. Tasteful.
She did her best to ignore the humidity. Thick and heavy. Pressing against her skin.
Hena placed her present on the gift table.
It was the only one there, a result of her first misstep of the afternoon: She was on time.
Not only was she currently the sole guest in attendance, the venue was still being set up.
A dark-haired man in a red uniform—she recognized him as the bellhop who’d collected her things when she’d first arrived—was crouched next to the fondue machine, fixing the wiring.
A team of three silently arranged finger sandwiches and cakes on golden tiers for the afternoon’s high-tea theme.
Two women whispered among themselves as they adjusted the personalized perfume bar, the clear vials set in neat, even rows.
Hena traced a finger along the golden gifts sign.
Her own shower had been a simple affair.
Her aunt had thrown it for her at her duplex.
Even now, she could close her eyes and remember the scent of cardamom tea wafting from the kitchen as everyone gave their pointed opinions on the gifts, from the stainless steel cooking spoons to the high-end bedsheets.
They’d laughed at Auntie Gudi presenting Hena with an enormous cooking pot, insisting all new brides needed to know how to cook dinner for a party of fifty.
Hena felt a pang at the memories of her wedding week. They’d been curdled by all that followed.
The glass doors slid open, and Hena stiffened when she saw who it was: Irum, wearing a peach-colored chiffon shalwar kamiz, an Alexander McQueen skull pendant resting against her collarbone.
She held an oversized wicker basket filled with party favors in one hand while scrolling on her phone with the other. Nearing the gift table, she spotted Hena and paused mid-step.
“Oh. Hey,” Irum said, her discomfort written across her face.
It hadn’t always been like this. Hena had known Irum since she was a baby. Irum had visited their home practically every weekend, raiding Hena’s closet alongside Lulu.
She’d been thrilled about Hena and Nasir—the only member of his family who had been pleased.
Hena remembered Irum’s occasional visits to Princeton when she was barely twelve.
How the three of them would wander the campus, skip rocks at Lake Carnegie, and grab ice cream from the Bent Spoon.
At night Irum crashed in Hena’s dorm room, confiding her crushes to Hena like they were sisters.
Because they nearly had been. Had life turned out differently, Irum would have been family.
But a lot had changed since then.
Hena steeled herself. As awkward as this moment was, they needed to talk. Better now, without guests to observe them and turn it into fodder for gossip.
“It’s good to see you,” Hena said. “I’m sorry about last night. I’d come off a long flight, and I was thrown. Of course you’d be here. You should be here.”
“Lulu should have given both of us a heads-up.”
Hena was about to ask how she was doing, but Irum spoke again.
“Have you heard from my brother? Since…you know?”
The way she said my brother, her eyes growing bright, made Hena ache. Irum had always adored her big brother. Idolized him.
“I saw him at the mehndi. The night before the shaadi,” Hena said, repeating the same words she’d told the officers and anyone who asked. Saying it to Irum though, a pit formed in her stomach. “I wish I had a better answer. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Her expression shifted. “Not like you had anything to do with it. Right?”
Her mother’s words echoed in Hena’s mind: Irum got it in her head someone was hiding something.
Given the general consensus of Hena’s complicity in whatever happened to Nasir, of course Irum would treat her as suspect number one. And Hena was hiding something. If only the truth was an option.
Before Hena could reply, Irum’s cheeks flushed.
“That came out wrong,” she said. “I’m working on it. Weddings are triggering for me. My mother says maybe it’d be easier to move on if I just accepted he’s dead.”
Dead? Hena shivered.
“I don’t believe that. Not for a second,” Hena said.
“The police said there was no sign of foul play. Between the emptied accounts, his clothes and luggage gone…I don’t know where he went”—this part, at least, was true—“but there’s no reason to think he isn’t out there.
I’m not sure I can live in a world where he isn’t. ”
“But Nasir leaving without telling anyone?” Disbelief flashed across her face. “You know him. He wouldn’t do that.”
There’s a lot I didn’t know, Hena thought. Not when he was so good at hiding things.
“One day whatever happened will come out.” Irum’s mouth pressed tight. “When we finally get answers, whoever did this will pay.”
She’s a gulab jamun wrapped in a marshmallow and dipped in cotton candy. That’s how Nasir used to describe his kid sister. He wasn’t wrong. But three years could change many things. Three years of grieving could sharpen anyone’s edges.
Irum set the party favors on the table and cleared her throat.
“How are you handling the gossip? It’s been a lot, hasn’t it?” she asked.
Hena grimaced. “Are people bothering you?”
“It’s more faux concern about how I’m holding up. With the two of us here, they’re itching for something to happen.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s going to be a long week.”
“People can be ruthless.”
“It is what it is. But I say we give them nothing to talk about.”
“Yeah?” Hena exhaled. “I’d like that.”
Irum’s expression warmed. “Good,” she said.
One of the perfume hostesses hurried over. There was a snafu with one of the scents. Irum excused herself to help, but they promised to catch up later.
Hena drifted to the terrace. Below her stretched manicured gardens, a winding path, a hedge maze just across from her.
Maybe now was the perfect chance to slip away and check out the grounds before the festivities began.
She stepped onto the raised wooden boardwalk running along the edge of the property, a dividing line between two worlds. To her right lay the manicured resort; to her left stretched the swamp—dark and untamed, rolling into the horizon.
Something tightened in her chest at the sight. This was the backdrop she’d grown up with. How many times had she wandered to the marshy water behind her childhood home, plucking reeds like these, thick along the murky shallows? Tucked a spider lily behind her ear?
This place set her teeth on edge. But it was also home.
Farther up, she walked past a metal dock glinting against the sun. A rowboat was tied loosely to its side. The water was deeper here. Darker.
Taking in the property from this vantage point, the glitzy venue seemed so big it felt like it could have its own zip code. She passed three pools, a white-fenced butterfly garden tucked near the parking lot, and a koi pond set toward the back of the premises.
As she walked, her thoughts drifted to her conversation with Irum.
She was relieved they’d had a chance to clear the air early on.
They hadn’t seen each other since that fateful evening in the boathouse.
When Irum held her own mother back, tried to talk her down from her torrent of accusations against Hena.
This had always been Irum’s role in Hena’s relationship with Nasir—the peacemaker.
When their parents had threatened to disown him, it was Irum who had intervened. Who pushed them to let it go.
It wasn’t that his parents had an issue with Hena specifically—more so her family.
Wealthy though they might have been, the Mirzas were not respectable in his parents’ eyes, having accrued their money through a hotel business rather than something prestigious, like Nasir’s father, a vascular surgeon.
Hena, they had told him, was not part of the plan.
But Nasir hadn’t been part of hers either.
Her goal for college had been simple: to get as far from this place and these people as possible. Princeton’s campus, with its Gothic buildings and crimson fall leaves, was the perfect place to escape the never-ending summer of her past.
She couldn’t have predicted how lonely she would feel four weeks in, clutching her tray in Frist’s food hall, questioning everything. Or that she’d spot Nasir across the room having dinner with friends. That their eyes would meet. That he would smile.
Until then, she’d only seen him as the boy who played football with Haris at childhood potluck parties.
Her sister’s friend’s brother. She hadn’t expected him to wave her over.
Hadn’t expected a friendship to bloom—or for their friendship to grow into something more.
Nasir wasn’t just the gentlest soul she’d ever known; he had been the first person who made her feel like she didn’t have to run from who she was.
Who saw her, flaws and all, and loved her anyway.
They’d been together nine years. Most of those years were good.
The best she’d known. Because she hadn’t known what lay beneath the surface—that their foundation was built upon a lie.
The leaves of the mangroves rustled in the distance. Hena shivered. Not for the first time, she wondered: What if she’d declined his invitation all those years ago? What if she could’ve undone everything that followed?