Inked Love (A Muslim Novel)

Pain Of Regret

The Prophet (ﷺ) said:"The woman is not allowed to travel without a Mahram."

[Sahih Muslim 1341a, Sahih Bukhari 1862]

Chapter 2: Pain Of Regret

"Azi, would you like a cup of coffee?"

"No, bhabi, I just had my breakfast."

"I baked cheesecake last night. You didn't have it, if you want I can get it for you!" Her sister-in-law, Farida, insisted adamantly on feeding her.

Aziza chucked softly before denying it again. "No, bhabi, I am fine. Maybe, I will have a taste of it in the evening with tea."

Farida frowned dejectedly before sighing. "You don't eat anything at all."

That was not true. But her sister-in-law had a presumption that by feeding people all delicacies she could somehow make them feel better and ease their worry.

Which might work for some. But Aziza couldn't see any food making her feel better now.

Her mood had been dampened ever since she reached her home a couple of days ago from Canada.

Her mother welcomed her home, hugged her tight in her embrace and that was all. After that, her mother refused to talk to her like she used to do.

Aziza was perplexed in the beginning wondering why her mother would look so detached. She reasoned out saying perhaps she was fatigued from worrying about her well-being.

After all, her youngest child was met with a close-to-death experience and she wasn't there to make it easy for her. Like how she was there for her children, guarding and protecting them in every hardship they faced.

When Aziza assumed that her mother would be normal the next morning, she was in for a surprise. An entire day had gone in silence from her mother, and she looked anything but normal.

Out of all the siblings, Aziza struggled the most with expressing her feelings to her family. There would be a thousand words in her head, wanting to be let out, but she would rather keep those beautiful thoughts to herself. She didn't know why, somehow she had an inkling when certain thoughts were so genuine and pure, they didn't have to get past our hearts. Somehow once expressed, the words weren't as valuable as it was when sheltered in us.

Yet she tried talking to her mother, but all in vain. She didn't probe much. But that didn't mean she didn't feel bad.

Aziza had a notion of why her mother would be distant. It could be nothing except her mother beating herself with guilt for letting Aziza travel alone to Canada and making her face the consequences alone without any assured safety. Sometimes, when people attached emotions to life happenings, the logic seemed to make no sense.

Her remorse only heightened when last night her paternal grandmother called them to ask about Aziza's well-being.

The conversation eventually led to her grandmother scolding her mother for being so lenient with her children in respect of Islamic values.

Her grandmother highly disapproved of Aziza traveling alone to a different continent, initially. Her disapproval had become contempt when they implied that Aziza was planning to stay with her sister's family for a month. Nothing ceased her grandmother's attempt to create havoc when she got to know Aziza was struck in the airport due to an unforeseen incident.  All alone.

It was all a disaster, to put it simply.

Her grandmother kept claiming that these were the very reasons; no sense of safety and the probability of being left abandoned and alone, putting oneself at high risk, the travelling alone was prohibited for women. Yet, people, these days would walk toward death proclaiming equal rights and freedom.