Chapter 11 #2
Reshma dropped her hands and moved back, making Zafar loosen his hold on her.
She walked towards a small cluster of palm trees and sat down on the sand under them, facing the ocean.
Zafar followed her and lowered himself onto the ground beside her.
He bent his legs at the knees and rested his arms on them as he too faced the ocean.
Reshma took the same pose, except her arms were looped around her knees as she rested her chin on them, looking utterly exhausted.
Thankfully, she wasn’t crying but the waves of sadness coming off her were palpable.
The sun was playing hide-and-seek behind the heavy clouds that loomed in the distance. There was humidity in the air and the prospect of a thunderstorm seemed pretty likely.
Zafar turned Reshma’s way when he heard her take a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh.
‘Thank you for coming out after me. I appreciate it.’
‘Please don’t thank me for that, Reshma.
’ It was something that should have been a given between them.
If she was upset, she should have had the confidence that he had her back, but that wasn’t where they were, so instead she felt she had to be thankful when he did the bare minimum.
Zafar shook his head, realising how much ground he had to make up.
They sat quietly for a few minutes. Reshma lowered her knees and sat cross-legged, picking up a handful of sand and then pouring it out, making a tiny mound in front of her.
‘Will you be all right seeing everyone later?’ They were gathering for another dinner that evening and in the coming days there were many events and gatherings where everyone would be in attendance, including the newcomers.
She nodded. ‘Yeah.’ Her voice was slightly hoarse as she spoke and he could see the after-effects of crying around her eyes. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s not like they’ll bother with me anyway.’
Zafar huffed. ‘I can’t understand how any father can be like that with his child, especially when that’s the only link he has to her mother.’
‘Maybe that’s why.’
Zafar looked at her sharply at that. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he’s never said it outright, but I get the feeling that maybe he thinks his relationship with my mother is best forgotten.
A mistake which he ended up getting tied down to because of me.
I’ve heard that they chose to marry each other because they were in love .
They’d only known one another for six months before they got married and it was only after getting married that their differences started coming to the surface.
They started having disagreements and their relationship became quite fractious. ’
‘Disagreements are normal in relationships. It takes time to adjust to your partner after marriage, doesn’t it? Any of that is hardly your fault.’ And he hadn’t missed her emphasis on the word love , a feeling she seemed to be deeply unhappy with.
She gave a humourless chuckle. ‘It is when they decided to separate and then my mum found out that she was pregnant, forcing them to give their relationship another go. Both their parents thought it would be the perfect thing for them to have a baby because it would bring them closer together. Newsflash – it didn’t.
It put a further strain on their relationship.
I wasn’t enough to pull their relationship out of the downward spiral it was in and it took my mother down too.
She was on strong medication for her multitude of issues and decided to get behind the wheel when I was six years old.
Maybe my father feels that had it not been for me, he and my mum would have separated long before that and their lives would have been completely different. Mum might still be—’
‘Please tell me he’s not said that to you.’ Zafar felt his blood bubble beneath his skin at the thought.
A corner of Reshma’s mouth turned up as she looked his way briefly before turning back.
‘No, he hasn’t. But sometimes a person doesn’t have to say something expressly, do they?
Their actions do the talking. He dropped me off at my maternal grandparents’ place, expecting them to take care of me.
They lasted six months before telling him to come and take me back because I reminded them too much of the daughter they’d lost. I’ve not seen them since. ’
‘Jesus. That’s … I don’t even have the words.’ He’d had no idea that her grandparents had done that.
‘Yeah, well. He tried for about a year and a half before Uncle Jawad stepped in. Over the years, he would often say that when the time was right, he’d take me back, but …
well, here we are.’ Her matter-of-fact tone belied the depth of hurt he knew she must be feeling.
Christ, the depth of hurt he was feeling was so intense, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what hers was.
Zafar couldn’t even begin to understand what Reshma would have gone through.
To face that kind of loss, displacement and abandonment at the young age she had been would have had a profound effect on her.
And then to have her only surviving parent not make the effort to be a part of her life was something that had the potential of causing her pain every single time she thought about it.
And what about him?
Guilt reared its head, loud and proud, as Zafar saw his own actions fall into place in Reshma’s life.
No wonder she had resignedly told him to go back home. She was used to not being a priority to people. He had so much to make up for, he wondered if he’d ever manage.
Zafar turned his face from looking at her to looking at the ocean. The tide was creeping in and the sky had darkened. He heard the distant roll of thunder.
‘I think we should head back. I don’t want Daadi to be any more worried than she already was when I left.’ Reshma got up and brushed the sand off her trousers as she spoke.
When Zafar got up, there was barely a foot between them. ‘Thank you for sharing what you did with me, Reshma. I know it couldn’t have been easy. It probably brings all those feelings back to the surface for you.’
She looked up at him, her eyes sad but clear. She shrugged her shoulders and lowered her gaze.
Zafar placed two fingers under her chin and with the slightest pressure, lifted her face to look at him. ‘I know my opinion doesn’t hold a great deal of weight right now, but for what it’s worth, I think you’re incredible.’
Slowly, he lowered his head, his lips hovering over her forehead. He only waited a scant few seconds before she moved forward the last centimetre and he brushed his lips on her forehead, inhaling the scent of her shampoo.
They stood there, suspended in time, as Zafar savoured the feeling of closeness to Reshma. Even though it was her who had spent the last hour going through an emotional wringer, he felt like he needed the comfort of her touch.
He eased away slowly, reluctantly, and looked down at her, her nose stud catching the dim light and twinkling. She gave him the smallest smile, slowly lifting her hand and placing the cool tips of just three fingers on his jaw.
Her eyes roved over his face, seemingly cataloguing every part of it, and Zafar did the same, moving from her eyes to her lips, where the tip of her tongue came out and ran across her lips before disappearing.
He moved the hand that had been gently holding her chin further up, cupping the side of her face with a light touch, afraid that she might not welcome more from him.
But she surprised him by closing her eyes and leaning into his hand.
Zafar felt a zing of energy go from his hand all the way through his body. His nerve endings tingled to life, his heart racing.
Gradually, she opened her eyes and eased away from him, putting a few steps between them. Zafar put his hands in his pockets, acknowledging that the moment was over, and they both made their way back to the villa. The silence between them simmering with tension, but less fraught than before.