Beloved

4.

'Ayat...can I ask you something?' Haya said to me while I was busy cooking and she was working on her assignment by the dinner table.

'Hmm,' I replied.

'Why don't you talk to Zaid bhai? You are about to marry him, but he doesn't even ask for you when he comes over to meet Papa sometimes.' She complained. She wasn't too fond of him.

'I told you to not worry about this...and besides, I don't like to talk about it' I told her.

'You don't even like talking about him, how are you going to live with him?' She questioned me.

'What do you want me to do? Stop this marriage and break the promise I made with Mama when she...' I turned around to look at her and saw my dad entering the house.

'Papa...' I looked at him and so did Haya. He walked in further and came into light, that's when I noticed that there was a cast on his left arm.

'What happened to you...are you...' I stopped when I noticed Mr.Hamza walking behind Papa. What was he doing here?

'What are you doing here?' I stared at him and he also looked shocked to see me.

'I...' He looked between me and Papa.

'You know each other?' Papa asked me.

'Yes...he is the facilitator for the training program that I am doing...you need to sit down first...' I went up to Papa and helped him to sit down. I looked at Mr.Hamza and offered him a seat.

'Haya, go get some water...Papa how did this happen? Does it hurt?' I looked at the cast.

'I am fine now, there was a car backing up and it was a blind spot...the driver hit the break on time or else it would have been worse...thankfully Hamza was there, he took me to the hospital and then came to drop me off' Papa covered my hand with his and tried to assure me that he was okay but I could see that he was in pain. There were drops of dried up blood all over his shirt and trousers.

'Thank God you are okay...' I took a glass of water from Haya's hand and handed it to Papa.

'Would you like some water?' Haya asked Mr.Hamza.

'I am okay...I think I should get going...I was just here to drop him off...' Mr.Hamza looked at me as he got up to leave.

'I can't let you leave like this...have dinner with us...it should be ready soon...'Papa interfered. Why did he have to stop him? I bet he had thousand other things to do anyway.

'No...there is no need for that...I have some things to do anyway. Take care of yourself.' He walked over to Papa and shook his hand, before heading towards the door to leave.

'Ayat...go walk him to the door' Papa told me and I went after Mr.Hamza.

'Mr.Hamza...'I called out his name and he stopped in the hallway.

'Thank you for taking him to the hospital and bringing him here' I thanked him. I thanked him because I knew he didn't have to do that. I thanked him because I knew how normal it was for some people to look at someone suffering and not offer them help. I thanked him because he went out of his way to make sure a complete stranger to him reached his home safely.

'Was that your sister?' He asked me instead of responding back to my gratitude.

'Yeah...' I nodded.

'Is it just you three?' He asked as we continued walking towards the main gate.

'Yeah...' I replied. Why was he asking all this?

'You can miss this week's class if you want...' He finally said to me when he opened the door to leave. Did I hear him correctly? Did I just hear him offering me to skip a class?