Eighteen-year-old Hayat Amanullah has it all: a loving family, a carefree life, and a future at the Ivy League school of her dreams. But her perfect life shatters when her oldest brother suddenly dies in a car accident. The tight-knit Amanullah fami...
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~ Purple hyacinth: Regret ~
I'm restless the entire night, tossing and turning and constantly checking my phone to see if Abeer has texted.
I don't expect her to, after the spitfire in my front yard, but it still hurts. Countless times I open our chat and try to formulate a text but lose my nerve and backspace everything.
Abeer and I have never fought like this. We would occasionally have playful arguments, but nowhere near as serious as this. Arafat would always say Masha Allah to our friendship, and Ihsaan would joke that we were like disgusting inseparable twin fetuses (the difference between my brothers was often comical).
After an uneasy and sleepless night, I pray fajr and trudge downstairs like a zombie. I spend until noon frantically cleaning the house and tending to my garden, burying my stress in my work. It's my dad's day off, and he's reading a newspaper and occasionally asking me questions like, "Shehzaadi, what are you up to?" and "Shehzaadi, how's the garden going?"
When I'm completely spent and can no longer find a poor chore to release all my frustration on, I settle down on the couch next to my dad and lean my head back.
Immediately he puts his newspaper down and places an arm around me, tucking me into his chest. I melt into him, closing my eyes and focusing on the sound of his heartbeat. Distantly I'm aware of the dishes clinking in the kitchen as my mom makes chai, and for a moment everything feels fine.
Ever since Arafat passed away, I feel like I've been thirsty for any form of love. Having been the laadli, carefree child of the family, adjusting to a cold, quiet life afterwards was painful and miserable. And even though we've gotten much better over the past couple of weeks, there's still a distance amongst my family, one I'm not sure will ever completely go away.
As I snuggle deeper into my dad's embrace, he kisses the top of my head and murmurs, "You okay, Shehzaadi? You've been on autopilot all morning."
I just nod, lacking the energy to even formulate a coherent sentence.
He sighs after a moment. "I know I haven't been here for you enough. For you, for Ihsaan, for Layla. I haven't been the father or the husband I should have been."
My eyes crack open and I lift my head to look at my dad. "What are you talking about?" I croak. "Don't say things like that."
"It's true. We had to stick together, but I left you all to fend for yourselves. I wasn't there for you. I thought that if I went to work as usual every day and forced a laugh here and there and pretended everything was fine, everything would eventually be fine." He tenses. "I was wrong."
I shift so that I'm facing my dad. Grabbing his other hand, I rub soothing circles on his palm. There's a rare vulnerability on his face, one he has tactfully kept hidden for so long. "That's not true, Papa. You tried everything you could to hold this family together. You've always been here for us. Everyone's just been..." I shrug lightly. "Dealing in their own ways."
