Chapter 13
·
Hena hated hospitals. And today was the worst experience to date. Ammi lay sound asleep on the bed. The heart monitor beside her beeped in tune to the throbbing inside Hena’s own head.
But the beeps meant Ammi was alive.
It meant she was still here.
It had been two hours since she was stabilized. Khala yawned from where she sat on a stiff-backed chair by the wall. Gita, who had been standing guard by her mother’s side since they’d arrived, was curled up on the ledge of the cushioned bay window now, drifting in and out of sleep.
Hena hadn’t stopped pacing. Her body was restless, as if constant motion could hold off whatever was coming.
She walked to her mother’s side now. Gingerly, she touched her mother’s sleeve and braced.
For her mother’s eyes to fly open. For her to scowl at Hena.
Ammi didn’t so much as flinch. Thanks to the wonders of morphine, she wouldn’t be waking anytime soon.
“I don’t understand,” Khala said. “Today was a good day. The new cough suppressant was working wonders. This coughing fit came out of nowhere. When I saw the blood—” She paused. “I was preparing for the worst.”
A nurse came to check Ammi’s vitals. Hena stared at the IV delivering the morphine. She thought of the rows of pain medications lining the counter of her mother’s penthouse suite.
“Is this level of morphine safe?” Hena asked the nurse. “She’s on constant pain medication, and the dosages are high. People can get easily addicted, can’t they?”
“Oh, hon.” The nurse looked at her sympathetically.
Ah. There was that knot in Hena’s chest again.
When the nurse left, Hena glanced at Khala. Gita rubbed her eyes and yawned. She finally asked the question she had been avoiding since she arrived.
“How long does she have?”
Gita and Khala exchanged concerned looks.
“Please,” Hena said. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“Soon,” said Khala.
“Soon, as in…?”
“It could be weeks. Or it could be any day, really,” Khala said softly.
Any day. Hena looked at her mother as the words sank in. She had known, hadn’t she? Deep down, she knew. All she had to do was look at her mother’s skeletal frame to know she was barely holding on.
“The goal is to keep her as comfortable as possible,” Gita said. “The pain is the hardest thing to deal with.”
Pain so brutal that her mother—who hated hospitals, doctors, medication—was letting Gita and the medical team load her up with whatever it took to dull the agony.
“This is the worst time to throw a wedding,” Hena said. “No matter how comfortable we make her, the schedule is grueling, and the exertion is wearing her out. She can’t keep going like this. Someone should have talked her out of it. It’s—it’s killing her.”
“We tried our best to reason with her. All of us did,” said Khala.
“But your mother said seeing Lulu off in a grand wedding was her dying wish. You know your mother. If she sets her mind on something, there’s no stopping her.
She’s difficult to counter on an ordinary day, but once she pulled the ‘I’m dying’ card, how were we to refuse? ”
“She’s the most stubborn person I know.”
“You have no idea,” Khala said.
But Hena did have some idea.
Looking at her now, a strange sort of grief climbed up Hena’s throat.
It wasn’t just sadness for Ammi. It was for herself.
Deep down, a part of her had hoped there would come some kind of turning point for the two of them.
Their relationship. A moment where her mother would have a realization.
That things didn’t have to be the way they were between them.
That maybe there would come a day where they would mend things.
But sometimes there was no fixing what was broken.
Sometimes you ran out of time before you could.
—
Hours passed. Hena was perched on the edge of the bay window next to Gita, her eyes drifting closed, when Lulu burst into the hospital room.
She’d been in and out since Ammi had been hospitalized.
Now she stepped inside with their mother’s favorite pillow.
Her special filtered water. All these hours later, she’d still not changed out of her mustard-yellow mayoun outfit.
Her makeup was smudged. Her hair, half-unpinned, fell haphazardly down the sides of her face.
“How is she? Any updates?” Lulu began, but she stopped abruptly when she saw Ammi. A sob escaped.
“She’s all right. Just sleeping,” Khala reassured Lulu. “I told you to get some rest. She’s stabilized now.”
Lulu shoved down the side railing and squeezed into the bed next to her. She wrapped an arm around Ammi’s frail body. “You’ll be okay, Ammi,” she said softly.
Her mother’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at Lulu. When she spoke, her words were barely a rasp.
“You’re going to ruin your outfit.”
Everyone froze for a moment, before bursting into laughter.
“You fainted,” Hena told her mother, once the laughter subsided. “They’re running tests to see what’s going on, though the current guess is severe dehydration.”
“I’ve been hydrating as much as I always do,” Ammi said. “And you have me on those godforsaken IVs each day.”
“Even so,” Gita said, “a full desi wedding schedule is exhausting even if one is fully healthy. You need to pare down how much you’re doing. Your body can only handle so much stress.”
“I’m done. We can’t keep going like this,” Lulu said suddenly. “Khaled’s coming in a little while. I’ll call the imam. He can marry us here.”
“What are you going on about?” Ammi asked.
“I’m saying we’ll make it official and call it a day,” said Lulu. “The guests will understand.”
“The mehndi is this evening,” Ammi said. “You can’t miss it.”
Lulu looked at her, incredulous. “Are you kidding me?”
“Where is the joke? I certainly didn’t make one.” Ammi pressed a button on the remote and adjusted her bed upright. “A mehndi is one of the most important days of a wedding. You told me yourself it was the mehndi you were most excited about.”
“Ammi,” Lulu said slowly, as though she couldn’t believe she had to explain this. “Things have changed since then.”
“I will not have tonight’s festivities canceled on account of me.” Her voice took on more power. “I mean it, Lulu.”
Lulu continued to argue with Ammi, but Hena could already see there was no sense trying to fight this. As weak as she was, her mother was refusing to take no for an answer.
“I’d like to be discharged,” she said when the nurse returned to check her vitals.
“I understand,” the woman replied. “It’s difficult to be cooped up in this room. Dr. Kao will be here in a little while. We’re waiting on a few more tests, and then he’ll go over the results of everything and—”
“He can phone me with whatever updates he needs to relay,” she interrupted. “Where do I sign the forms to leave?”
“Ammi.” Lulu was clearly exasperated. “You can’t just leave.”
“I can do as I wish,” Ammi retorted. “I’m a dying woman, and I get the final say with how I spend my final moments, don’t I? Isn’t that the least I deserve?”
“Ms. Mirza, I understand the urgency, and we will discharge you as soon as we are able,” the nurse hurriedly assured her. “But we need the doctor to go over your results. It won’t be much longer, I promise. I’ll ping him as soon as I step out.”
After everyone forcefully and firmly sided with the nurse, she relented, requesting her favorite peppermint tea and the metal bracelet to help her nausea while they waited for the tests to come back.
“Let me get it,” Hena offered.
Lulu handed her car keys over, and Hena headed down to the lobby as the sliding door opened. Khaled, Haris, and Irum hurried inside.
“How is Auntie Frida?” Khaled asked worriedly. “Lulu said…she thought…”
“She’s awake, and she’s in good spirits,” Hena told him. “Lulu’s there with her right now. They’ll be happy to see you.”
“I’ll catch up,” Irum told Khaled. She turned to Hena. “Lulu texted me the mehndi was off?”
“It’s back on,” Hena said. “Our mother is insisting we keep everything as scheduled.”
Irum balked. “Is she joking? I saw her pass out. She’s in no condition.”
“I know, and mehndis can go on for hours. There’s no reasoning with her. We tried.”
Irum considered this. “How about we shorten it?” she asked. “We can push it to an earlier start time. Maybe four o’clock?”
“Good idea,” Hena said. “And we can cut some of the rituals as well.”
“I’ll set a strict schedule. Every ritual will have a hard end time. We can make sure she’s in bed by eight.”
“Sounds perfect.” Relief swept through Hena. “Thank you, Irum.”
Irum headed down the hallway, but Haris hung back.
“Glad to hear your mother is doing better,” he said. “You doing okay?”
“Define okay.” Hena gave him a weary smile. “I’m relieved she’s hanging in there, but she’s also currently planning her own hospital jailbreak.”
“I’m not sure whether to be impressed or horrified.”
“I’m a little bit of both, to be honest.”
“Between your mother and that detective barging in…it’s a lot.”
“I’m grateful Lulu’s got some great bridesmaids to help. And you, Haris. I can’t thank you enough for your help with the detective.”
“I’m heading to the police station right now,” he told her as they walked out to the parking lot. “I want to see what Milcheck has, and if it’s as I suspect—nothing—I plan to file a complaint. It’s fucked up to intrude on your family wedding like this.”
“I’d love to know who called it in,” Hena said.
“If I can get any information, I will, but tips are normally anonymous.”
A car zoomed by in the distance. She heard the sound of distant honks.
“I don’t even get the implication he was trying to make about us.” Her voice faltered. “They think we colluded to hurt him? What would our motive be?”
At this, Haris winced.
“Uh-oh. What have you heard?”
“You don’t want to know. Trust me.”
“Haris…”
“It seems like someone started a rumor.” He exhaled. His ears turned a subtle shade of pink. “About us. About a romantic past.”
A romantic past. A strange weight settled over her. “Are they saying I cheated on Nasir? That you and I…?”