Coming Home (English Version)

21. Wisdom

Hamdan

Six missed calls and a series of text messages begging me to pick up the phone, I turn the screen off and try to keep a relaxed attitude as I shake hands to say good-bye on the driveway. As soon as I get in the car I call her back and she picks up after the first ring.

"I have to see you. Now." She admonishes with a distressed voice before I can even say anything.

"What happened? Are you okay?" I ask.

"No! Nothing is okay. I mean, I'm physically fine but we need to talk..." Her voice starts breaking. "We cannot do this anymore, Hamdan."

My heart sinks as Saeed Hilal starts driving.

"Layla, what happened?" I insist.

Just a few hours ago everything was just fine, it was more than fine, it was perfect. And now I can only hear crying over the phone.

She sniffles. "Come to my house, please."

I rest my head on the seat in defeat, it's clear she won't discuss anything with me over the phone.

"Fine." I concede. "I'm not that far away, okay?"

She hangs up without saying anything else and I ask Saeed to take me to her place. My mind frantically tries to figure out what could be this bad, she said we cannot do this anymore. This what? Us? Why? As we get closer to her home, I take my headscarf and prayer cap off. Saeed asks me if he should wait and I have no idea what to tell him.

"Stay." I finally reply to him. "And I'll let you know if you can go."

He stops the car on her driveway and I jump out of it to head straight to the main door. Once I'm inside I find Layla sitting in the living room; eyes and nose as red as they can be, both arms crossed and a tissue paper in her hand.

"What's going on?" I quickly walk towards her but she stops me with her hand.

"Hamdan, no."

I stop and bring my hands to my head. "Fine! But please talk to me!"

She takes a deep breath. "You said you only met Shamma once."

"Yes." I nod.

"Well... I met her today."

My hands slide down from my head to my face. There are some things you cannot run from, it will eventually catch up to you and to make it worse I didn't have to face it, she did. When I look up, Layla is standing up and looking out the window.

"How?" I ask.

"Maryam introduced us." Turning around, she faces me again. "It turns out we had already met before, years ago, I simply didn't remember."

"Layla, I'm sorry." My hand reaches out for her arm but she squirms away.

"You have no idea how I feel." Her eyes shine with tears. "Let me tell you about her; she is very polite, seems like a perfectly nice girl, she's beautiful and she's waiting for you, Hamdan! She is waiting for you to finally marry her!"

"I-- I didn't mean to hurt her or for you to have to go through this, I just--"

"It doesn't matter!" She calls. "It doesn't matter if we didn't mean to hurt her! We did it! Even if she doesn't know! What the hell are we doing, Hamdan? We can't pretend she doesn't exist!"

"I was waiting to talk to mama about this! You know it!"

"Then we could have waited too!" Her eyebrows pushed together. "And you know what? I know what the tradition is, I know the culture, but in my opinion, you should face her, look at her in the eye, like I did today and tell her the truth. That's the least she deserves and it might actually give you an idea of how I feel right now."