For Our Love

Sixty

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Originally published: 11th September 2020

Thirty One Point Five Years Ago

For two years Fatima Ali had wanted a child, and she regularly faced taunts from her mother-in-law and Saira. Her mother-in-law wasn't as bad as Saira was in regards of making Fatima feel useless because she didn't have a child even two years after marriage. 

It didn't matter that Fatima was the most successful female in her own family, having struggled to get a proper medical education. The costs had been great but her father had worked hard to provide her tuition fees, even if her own mother hadn't supported her. She'd passed all her exams with flying colours and was recognised nationally as a woman who had struggled to her lower middle class roots to achieve her dream of being a doctor. 

Even though she was a successful, intelligent woman, the taunts of everyone around her were depressing her, and was starting to lose hope and faith. Ali noticed her changing behaviour, and he knew that in Islam one must not despair and lose faith in the mercy of Allah. He took her for Umrah, a pilgrimage in the Holy city of Makkah. Unlike Hajj, which is once a year, Umrah can be done throughout the year, and is completed within hours.

A year later, a few months after she started work in a private clinic, her first work place, she gave birth to her first child, a son. Fawad, meaning 'heart', meant the entire world to her, and was the greatest blessing of her life so far. 

At that time, she and Ali lived in a different house with her in-laws. Mansoor Uncle, her father-in-law was a quiet and reserved man, and he tended to stay in his own room, fed up by the family politics that surrounded him. Fatima's mother-in-law, who she referred to as 'Ammi Jaan', as her husband did, was an unpredictable woman and could either be caring or very cruel, depending on her mood. The worst one was Saira. None of Fatima's children ever found out the truth about her life, but the fact was that Saira had been engaged at the time to a man that she had been completely in love with. Fatima chose never to tell this to her kids, to maintain Saira's privacy, despite her Nand's treatment of her.

Although it didn't matter to her whether she had a boy or a girl, as long as the baby was healthy, Fatima couldn't help feeling a little proud, and even a bit arrogant, that she'd had a son. The first grandchild of the entire family was her son. She was under the mistaken belief that this would increase her value in the eyes of her in-laws, but the truth was a lot more chilling. 

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It was the wedding of Nilofar, Fatima's Nand, who was also her best friend in the family. Nilofar was marrying a Canadian banker, and would be moving to Vancouver after Valima. The Nikaah had been performed the year before, and now that the paperwork was ready, the wedding date had been set.

"Give him to me." Saira roughly snatched a few weeks old Fawad from Fatima's arms. "It's your best friend's wedding, so go help Ammi Jaan out." 

Fatima watched her son looking uncomfortable, clearly disliking the way he had been snatched from the comfort of his mother's arms. She didn't protest though, because all her life her mother had taught her not to talk back to her in-laws. She watched, upset, as Saira walked away with her firstborn.

Arif, Saira's fiance at that time, had witnessed the entire thing. Being a family lawyer, he was unhappy with Saira's behaviour and had approached Fatima, who stood miserably at the entrance of the wedding hall. "Assalam Alaikum, Fatima Bhabi."