Chapter 42 Aisha Kapoor
Aisha Kapoor
The dinner table is silent. For probably the first time ever since both of our mothers came home. But I don’t have energy or coherent thoughts to speak at the moment, and no one else would take initiative to make small talk.
Mom keeps giving me helpless stares, as if she can sense that something is wrong with me.
But I don’t have it in me to talk to her either.
I know she would understand. I feel like when it comes to me and Reyansh, she has always been on my side.
I think that stems from the fact that at a certain point in life, even she loved his father, and in the situation I am in right now, she stood at the same point a few decades ago.
While Maa keeps herself busy with feeding Chhavi, Mom keeps her eyes closely on me and Reyansh—who still looks helpless. I was a bit too harsh on him, I feel. He is allowed to overthink and express his feelings. If he won’t talk them out with me, who will he go to?
But whenever he questions our relationship or my love for him, a part of me shrivels in fear that he will leave me, which is ironic in itself considering I plan on leaving him.
But in hindsight, I think I have forgotten that I wanted to leave him. But if I don’t want to leave him anymore, my previous words would have definitely put some thoughts in his mind to leave me.
“Aisha,” Chhavi starts, making me look up from my half-eaten plate of food, and it seems like everyone is looking at me at the moment. “I have a bit of a personal question for you.”
“If I say no, will you not ask it?” I say, tilting my head, and Maa gives me a stern glare.
“Aisha,” Maa says. “Be nice to your sister.”
I shrug, and Chhavi takes that as a sign to ask her question.
“When are you planning to have kids?”
Reyansh chokes on air, sitting beside me, and I pass him a glass of water and pat his back to calm him down. What the fuck is that question?
“Why are you interested in my personal life, Chhavi? And how is that an appropriate question to ask your sister at the dinner table?”
“Chhavi,” Maa scolds, and she raises her hands in surrender. “That’s not nice.”
“Sorry, Maa, for what I am about to say,” Reyansh starts, his face barely holding together his anger. “But Chhavi, my and Aisha’s sex life is none of your business.”
My heart races inside my chest, and I pinch his thigh so that he gets the idea to shut up.
My mom may be modern, but I would still not like to discuss my sex life in front of her.
“Reyansh, stop,” Mom interjects. “Chhavi, that is an inappropriate question to ask anyone.”
“I just wanted to know if I could expect myself to be made a massi anytime soon.”
“That is none of your business,” I lash out. “Maybe focus on building your career now that you are here. This kind of opportunity comes only to a few. Focus on making use of it.”
“Stop schooling me like I am a child,” she seethes. “I thought we were family. We could joke around.”
She gets up from the table and goes back to the guest room, and I sigh. So much for trying to keep her here.
“Aisha,” Maa says softly and gives me a look.
I would listen to anything she says, but I won’t let her cross my boundaries anymore just for the sake of her brother’s kids.
I let her do that as a child, but now that I am twenty-eight, I think I need to have a backbone when it comes to family matters.
Just because they gave us a home when we needed it doesn’t mean they get to act like we are their slaves and obliged to listen to any bullshit they spew.
“I know she gets too much, but please ignore her for as long as she is here. If it weren’t for my brother, I wouldn’t have let her be here. Besides, you know they have done so much for us already. This is the least we can do for them.”
The same story over and over again. If they didn’t help us out, it is not like we would have died.
“Maa, I am done being obliged to the people who were supposed to help us when we needed them to. What’s the point of having relatives if they won’t help us out?”
I am breathing fire at this point, but I am so exhausted with having such conversations over and over again. I am tired of feeling the weight of this unwanted guilt that we can’t repay them back.
“You really make me wish Dad wasn’t dead, Maa.
” I hate the words as I speak them, but sooner or later this was supposed to happen.
Her eyes glisten hearing my words, and I know she must be hurt too, but if I won’t speak facts, no one else will.
“Do you think we would be treated this way if he was alive? Just because my dad is no more doesn’t mean I will take this bullshit anymore. ”
“And what did your dad’s relatives do when we were distraught?” She gets up from her seat and comes near me.
“They abandoned us. At least mine came to us and helped us. Do you think it would have been easier if they didn’t help us?”
“Meher, stop.” Mom comes to stop her, but my mom doesn’t listen. After so long, it seems like we are both letting our frustration and our feelings out. In whatever fucked up, morally wrong way that we are.
“It would have been difficult, but at least I wouldn’t have grown up feeling like I owed them my life. I love them too, Maa. But you pushing me and shoving it in my face that they provided us with basic necessities in the time of need makes me despise them.”
“God forbid, I want you to be grateful.”
I shake my head. She doesn’t get it, does she?
“You know what sucks, Maa,” I say, gulping down my tears.
“That you will always pick them over me. They are your family after all, right? And I am just your daughter. What sucks even more is that you don’t see how they treat you as if you are still a guest, and if you do see, you turn a blind eye to that.
And it really fucking hurts to see, but if you don’t want it to change, I can’t help you. ”
Reyansh comes up to stop me when I pick up the car keys and storm out, but I push him away.
I need to be alone for a few minutes or hours.
“I will come back,” I tell him, and despite the tension running between us, he cares, and that speaks volumes about how shitty my earlier behavior was. “Just give me some space.”
* * *
After driving aimlessly for more than an hour around the city, I return back home.
Maybe I said too much, but the words were choking me down.
I knew I could have put my point across in a much better way, but fighting with my mom brings out the ugly side of me outside.
The one I never want to see, but she knows what triggers me the most, and she goes exactly there.
She knows what I said was true. If my dad were alive, I would have never been treated the way they do right now.
They would have treated Mom better, and they would have accepted Reyansh way more easily than they did.
Reyansh wouldn’t have had to prove that he was worthy of me in front of them if my dad were here because his word would be final.
I remember how on my engagement day I could literally hear all of them gossiping about how I broke my mother’s trust in me by having a love marriage, and that too with a guy who was half-British.
I still remember how all of them said I tarnished my father’s reputation, that if he were here he would have been ashamed. But they don’t know shit about my dad.
He would have supported me. He would have been proud of me for going after my heart. He would have been happy simply seeing me happy. But unfortunately, he wasn’t here, and my mother didn’t have it in her to support me when she knew this was wrong.
So, Reyansh did. He stepped in where he didn’t need to, somewhere he could have turned a blind eye too.
I know so many of the guys my extended family thought were worthy of me instead of him would have never put in the effort to bond with my mom, to fill in the space my dad left when he died.
They would have catered to their family only and would have expected that I do the same, forgetting that I had a mother too.
But Reyansh never did that. He became the son my mom never had; he became the figure in our lives that those said relatives never became. He brought back happiness not only in my life but in my mom’s too. Proving exactly why he was the only one meant for me.
But my mum really didn’t care, and I needed to expect that.
When I open the door of the house, I expect everyone to be asleep. I remove my shoes at the entrance and tiptoe my way inside when someone sitting on the couch speaks up, startling me.
“You took so long, Aisha. We were getting worried,” Mom says, and I calm down my racing heart.
“You scared me,” I say, putting my keys down on the table quietly. “Why are you awake?”
She gives me a look that is similar to how Reyansh looks at me when he is done with me.
“Because you left the house angry,” she says, patting the space beside her for me to sit. I reluctantly walk over there because I don’t want to really talk at the moment. Too many thoughts are running inside my head at the same time, and I just want to crash on my bed and get some sleep.
“Are you okay, Aisha?” she asks, gently running her hand over my head, and I feel my senses relax. “Meher was too harsh on you.”
“You think?” I ask, “I think I was too harsh on her. After all, she is my mom. I shouldn’t have talked to her like that.”
“You shouldn’t have,” she agrees. “But you didn’t really have a choice. I could see it was hurting you. In fact, everyone who knows you knew that this kind of behavior was hurting you. I could see that even on the day you guys got married so many years back. And I think even Meher can see it.”
“Then why doesn’t she act on it?”
She gives me a small smile as I rest my head on her shoulder.
“Because it is not easy to break allegiance with your family. Even when they are toxic. I don’t know why we women are built like that, but we think with our hearts, and your mom grew up in that family, Aisha.
She has spent more than half of her life with them, and when they helped you guys, even if that was what family is meant for, they put this unspoken obligation on her that she can’t let go of. ”
“But it is so wrong, Mom. It sucks to see her like that. I hate how they treat her more than how much I hate how they treat me.”
“I know,” she says, rubbing a soothing hand over my own. “But I think she is old enough to understand that and see what she wants to do with them. It is not worth it for you to strain your relationship with her now, is it? You guys are one team. Don’t forget that.”
I nod, because I know what she is saying is true. I have known that since a very long time ago, but hearing someone else say the words out loud makes it easier to understand.
“How come you understand me better than she does?”
She chuckles softly, careful not to make too much sound because everyone is asleep.
“Because I love you, Aisha. I have always said this: you are the daughter I never had.”
“I love you too, Mom. One thing I am grateful to Reyansh for is that I met you and Dad.”
She laughs at that, and I motion for her to keep it down.
“Speaking of him,” she says, and I look at her. “Is everything okay between you two? For the past few days, you guys had so easily slipped back to your old personalities that I and Meher thought that we could go back to our homes now. But tonight was different. What happened?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” I say. “It is like we take one step forward and then three back, and I don’t know if it is worth it.
I said some horrible things to him today which I shouldn’t have, but that’s what happens when I get hurt and I don’t know how to fix it.
I don’t even know whether he wants to still fix everything after today. ”
“Don’t be foolish,” she waves her hand mockingly. “He would always want to be with you. That boy has never wanted any woman other than you. So, no, I don’t think that he gave up. But what happened so suddenly?”
I think over how to say everything to her, everything that I said.
“He thought I thought that he was a mistake,” I say, and her eyes widen and her mouth drops open. I know, right? That was my reaction too. As if I would waste six precious years of my life with a man that I didn’t love. Ridiculous thought, honestly.
“I said that if he doubted my love, then what’s it worth then? I also may have said that the reason we might get divorced will be because it failed us both.”
I swear if her eyeballs could fall out of their sockets, they would have.
“I know. It was such a horrible thing to say.” I bury my face in my hands, and she pats my back.
“Honey, you two are so stupid,” she says, her voice sad, and I can’t help but chuckle.
“Thanks,” I say. “I know. It is just that I have forgotten how to be nice to him anymore. I mean, I wasn’t so nice to him before either, but you know what I mean.”
She nods because she knows exactly what I mean.
“I went from wanting to divorce him so that we can both be free from this marriage to wanting to be with him to thinking, ‘How can I want both things in the span of a month and a half?’ I don’t even know what I feel anymore.
Which one of these feelings was true? I swear, one day my head will explode. ”
“I keep thinking this one thing: what if we fall back into that space where we stop caring? I won’t be able to come back from that, for sure. What if five years down the line we both realize that it wasn’t worth it?”
“But what if it works out?” she says, “What if you guys realize this time that you don’t want to lose this precious thing? Don’t ruin your present in anticipation of a future you don’t know you will have or not.”
Her words hit home, and I know some of what she is saying makes sense.
“Forget about him because he isn’t here for this conversation. Tell me about you. Would you be able to live a happy life without him in your life? If the divorce happens after these few weeks that are left, what would your life be after that? Have you thought about it? Would you be happy then?”
“God, no,” I say, shaking my head. “Just the thought of it makes me want to cry. I can’t even say out loud how much he means to me, which is why it hurts so much. I love him too much, and I don’t think I will be able to live without him.”
He is all my happiness. My home. The one person I can rely on in the toughest storms. The one face I look forward to seeing every single day.
“So fight for it. Don’t let it go because of this.” She taps my head. “When it comes to love, you should use your heart.”
“What if he doesn’t want that anymore?”
“Honey, if there’s one person he has wanted, it’s you. It will always be you for him.”