The Secret Behind Her Hijab | ✔

23. Closure

Shadab

I was rendered speechless. After what mom said I couldn't think straight. Or may be I was thinking straight now after all the time. I don't know. But one thing I knew for sure was that everything was as clear as day to me. Everything had fallen into their respective places and the chaos had subdued.

The way I had treated Suhad was beyond evil. Why did I do that? I told her I was going to divorce her when she had done nothing wrong. She should have been the one to divorce me for the way I had treated her. I had forced her to be someone she was not, doubted her loyalty and innocence, and almost had an affair out of mere vexation. I had never felt so ashamed of myself, of my existence. I had to make this right. But first I had to burn the roots from where this turpitude evoked.

I grabbed the keys of my car and headed out the door. Inside the car I took a deep breath as I put the key in ingnition. This was now or never.

"Assalamu Alaykum Shadab bhai. How are you?" Ali had opened the door and moved aside to let me in. He was a cheerful man and had a heart of gold. Too good a partner for that sister of mine I must say. "Is everything alright?" He said assessing my face. It must have been clouded with anger.

"Yeah. Fine and all that. Is Zarine home?"

"Nah. She's out with some of her friends." He sighed. "She'll be back in sometime now. Have a seat." He said pointing in the direction of the living room. "Would you like something to eat, drink?"

I shook my head. I sat down on the couch with my head in hands not knowing what to do. I wanted to calm down but I had a feeling I had to stay angry for just this once. After that I was going to throw this anger out of the window.

"Hey bhai. You don't seem ok. What's wrong?"

"Nothing man. Waiting for your wife."

"I've been doing a lot of that too." He sighed once more and laid his head back on the headrest. He seemed tired, not physically though. I had never seen him look this way. Whenever we met he was always this jovial kind of person to whom people took an instant liking. To see him like this was dismal.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

His eyes snapped open at my question. He looked at me, his eyes searching mine, gauging if I could be trusted. "Nothing." He said, finally.

"Come on. You can tell me."

He smiled. "You wouldn't even tell me your problem." He pointed out. True. I wasn't telling him my problem so how could I expect something different from him.

"Tell you what, you tell me your problems and then I will tell you mine."

He stared at me, I could feel the gears in his head turning. I knew he wasn't the guy to tattle. He kept everything to himself as far as I knew. We've never heard him complain about anything. Whatever came his way he always faced it with a smile. Whatever he got, he thanked Allah for it. He was the most patient person I had ever met. So if he was sitting here about to narrate his botherations to me, it could only mean the the quota of his patience had been exhausted.

"Deal." He said. I signaled him to go on. "My problem is... Your sister." His gaze locked with mine. I don't know what kind of reaction he was expecting from me-- may be he was expecting that I would start to yell that how could he call my sister a problem-- but I was far from doing that.

"Great!" He looked taken aback at my choice of words. "Well not great. I mean... My problem is my sister too. So yeah, we have the same problem. Go on. What did she do?"

"She... It doesn't feel right. Doing this, gossiping. You know, the matter of husband and wife should stay between them. But I'm so frustrated right now I don't know what to do. You know when I was marrying her, I thought she would love me for me but she doesn't. She loves me for the things I possess. For the things I provide for her. In short she doesn't love me." Now he was the one putting his head in his hands. I went over to him and patted his back. He looked up to me, despair clear in his eyes. "You know, she is out there every evening with her friends doing Allah knows what. I ask her and she fills me in with the basics, careful not to go into the details. I tried telling her so many times, I tried bringing her closer to Allah, to me. But the more I pull her in the more she pushes away from me. I don't know why. So I ignore her nowadays. But everytime I ignore her it's like a stab in the heart to see that she doesn't care. She is happy that I ignore her. Was she always like this?"