Please, Find Me

Chapter 34

Ilhaam kept looking at the massive watch above the entranceway. Shaheen was supposed to drop Imaad back home at 8 and no matter how hard she tried to keep up the pretences, she couldn't do it. She couldn't pretend that she hadn't worn the dress he loved the most by chance nor could she pretend that she didn't spend just a little extra time in front of the mirror that evening as she carefully applied her lipstick and mascara. 

It was useless though. He didn't even find her attractive anymore but she tried anyway. She felt so desperate and pathetic but Dammit! She was so madly in love with her husband that she'd give up every last shred of herself to have him look at her as he did before. She hardly even heard the chatter going on around her as they got together for their rare family meals. Whenever their mother assumed they needed to get together for the sake of looking like a normal family, she'd phone and demand her sons' presence and they grudgingly complied- as usual.

Why couldn't she just stop? Why couldn't their mother just stop pretending? Ilhaam couldn't even pretend that she wasn't waiting for a glimpse of her husband yet her mother had pretended as if they were living a life no one else but her saw. She didn't know how she did it. It was draining all of them and every family meal seemed to just suck the life out of all of them. Mikaeel looked as if he was bored out of his mind as he zoned out of the conversation entirely. Hoori seemed to focus just a little too intently on the plate before her and Nooreen and Imtiyaaz were in a world of their own muttering nauseating bullshit in each other's ears. Imtiyaaz annoyed the shit out of her and she never understood how it was that they were siblings in the first place.

"What?" Mikaeel was dragged out of his daydream as his mother addressed him.

"I asked if Is'haaq is back." She repeated.

"I don't know." He replied shortly before he crunched noisily on a carrot off his plate.

"Oh why..." Her question was cut off as the doorbell chimed and Ilhaam was sent into a tizzy as she practically jumped off her chair to answer the door. The lounge fell silent as Saadiya tried to eavesdrop on their conversation.

 Ilhaam sounded unusually quiet as she asked Shaheen if Imaad ate his supper and if Zahra and Burhaan were doing okay with their homework and whether or not he had food himself. She asked if he was okay with clearing up and if the school rounds were too taxing on him. She asked if had phoned the plumber to fix the tap in Zahra's bathroom and if he had gotten the heater in Burhaan's room exchanged because the one he had wasn't working too well.

She asked if he was okay and if he had worked out the accounts for their new client. She made sure never to bump into him when they were at work because it was too painful to look at him and to remember that the only way they were even together was because he started out as an intern in their family's company.

And as Imaad stormed into the lounge to hug his grandfather, they heard the door close softly along with Ilhaam's quiet sniffles as she tried to compose herself before walking back into the lounge.

"... And daddy taught me how to finish that level on Cars that I couldn't finish and then he took me and Burhaan and Zahra out for supper. And then we only came back now."

"That sounds like a very fun day." Nazeer ruffled his hair as Imaad sat happily on his lap.

"Uh huh. But when I asked daddy to stay he said no. How come he said no?"

Ilhaam walked in as soon as Imaad asked his grandfather that question, oblivious to the pained look on his mother's face as she overheard him. "Because he has to take Zahra and Burhaan to school tomorrow." She replied, smiling brightly at him.

"Oh. Good thing I don't go to school mummy. They were looking very sad when I got out of the car." He said, climbing into his mother's lap as soon as she sat down.