"There will be no divorce, ever. So think before you say yes." His view fixated on her.
"I've already said yes." Her voice and eyes were dim, too much for anyone to not notice.
"I'm a cruel man so don't you dare humiliate me if you get cold feet and...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Shahwar!" Meher ran towards her friend who was busy making the sauce for her dish in the kitchen. "Your phone's ringing girl!" She held the phone up and showed the blinking screen.
"It's abba ji." Shahwar smiled and took the phone leaving the wooden spoon in the utensil, she answered the call. "Salam, abba ji. How are you?"
Meher was standing there, and continued the task Shahwar had dropped moving the spoon in the pan.
"Oh, is everything alright?" Dur e Shahwar tensed up while talking to her father. "I have my evaluations next week so—"
"Uh, right, okay." She ended the call looking strangely at her friend.
"What happened?" Meher was ready to find out what could've made her friend look so down after a short conversation with her father.
"He's asked me to come to Karachi." She sounded so low.
"All of a sudden, why?"
"He sounded weird Meher. I don't know but it's never been like that, he was so comfortable about me missing my evaluations. You know this is so unlike him. I don't like how it's making me feel." She looked at Meher with distress.
"Must be something important then? You're the only child he has so..." Meher tried to make some logical points.
"Yes, but my results will be affected and what's more important than that? He's always put me first, and he's asked me to come back tomorrow." Shahwar sighed, "I won't even get time to speak to the dean."
"It's okay, you can mail them your leave of absence. And maybe retake your exams next year?" She suggested knowing how difficult it would be.
"Yeah, I don't know. Anyway I'll go and pack. I don't feel good." She moved out of the kitchen.
Dur e Shahwar started packing her things, her mind began to wander somewhere else, she had spent her last two years in Spain working day and night to excel in her degree and to gain recognition from her supervisors for her culinary arts degree and when she was finally about to reach her goal her father had asked her to return. It was making her feel uneasy. Her father had never been an unreasonable man and he had always supported her.
Dur e Shahwar was four when her mother had passed away. Her father had remarried soon but her stepmother had never been the evil kind. She'd been good to Shahwar. Never interfered in her life and not ever behaved like a jealous woman whenever Salman Nawaz would give his only child most of his attention and time.
Once done she laid down on her bed and closed her eyes forgetting about dinner. She wasn't able to sleep after the sudden unexpected instructions she had received from her father. Maybe it was too pertinent for her to be there she thought. She wanted to believe that the reason must have been truly important.
•••
It had been an almost fourteen hour journey starting from the flight to the end of it and then back to her house. The moment she had entered the house help had taken all her luggage to her room and she was told to meet her father right away who had been waiting for her in his library. The whole environment seemed weird that no one had come to welcome her, not even her stepmother, Farhana who always did.
