She had on a silk midi dress with three-quarter sleeves. She’d even stopped by the bank to grab matching gold bracelets and earrings to complement her gold clutch. But Lulu took in her outfit and pursed her lips.
“Too much?” Hena asked.
“Hena. Are you kidding me?”
Ah.
“I don’t own anything desi anymore,” Hena said.
Lulu sighed but said nothing. Hena followed her toward the dining hall. With each step the laughter and conversations grew louder. Her pace slowed. Her pulse quickened.
Lulu looked back at Hena. Her expression softened a touch.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I know this isn’t easy.”
Understatement of the century.
The last wedding she’d attended had been her own. Hena thought of the blood pooling on the carpet of her bridal suite. Blue and white lights flashing outside her family home. The way the police rushed inside the boathouse, guns drawn. The knife still clenched in her hands.
Hena had hidden away from these people for three years. She’d have happily stayed away the rest of her life. But whether or not she wanted to do this, it was time.
3
•
The dining hall was beautiful, with low-lit chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling and fairy lights that blinked along the windows. Elaborate orchid centerpieces, Ammi’s favorite flower, rested on each table. Along the back wall, silver chafing dishes were being set up.
Hena stalled mid-step when she saw a man in a gray shalwar kamiz sitting on a dais, strumming his sitar. He wasn’t the same musician who’d performed at her wedding, but the music was achingly similar. In fact, everything here was. The music. The festive colors. The food. It was like time traveling back to a place she’d never wished to revisit.
And the people. They weren’t just similar. They were one and the same. She knew everyone seated at these tables—the honorary aunties and uncles she grew up with as well as her actual relatives. Three years ago, they’d been at her own nuptials. Dancing. Laughing. Tonight, they were silent. Their bodies turned in their chairs, staring at her as though she were a ghost returning to haunt them.
She spotted her mother in the crowd and drew in a sharp breath. Ammi had always been a small woman; Lulu and Hena had gotten their height from their father—the onlything of his she was glad to have. But Ammi, in a designer silk shalwar kamiz, seemed smaller than she remembered. As though she had curled into herself. Despite her tastefully applied makeup and concealer, her eyes were undeniably sunken, her lips thin. When her gaze locked onto Hena’s, they grew thinner still.
Hena heard whispers of conversation as she maneuvered through the crowds.
“The gall! Crashing this wedding after everything she’s done to this family.”
“She’s hardly crashing it. It’s her sister’s nuptials. They had no choice but to invite her, didn’t they?”
“Not after what she did. Hanifa said they explicitly told hernotto come. Poor Irum. This could trigger her all over again. Having to be in the same room while her brother is dead and gone.”
“We don’t know that he’s…”
“Don’t be naïve. I have half a mind to call the police right now. We don’t want a repeat of last time, do we? All that blood…”
Hena kept moving, her pace steady, her expression neutral. The police had long ago ruled that the DNA on the bloody knife was not Nasir’s. Everyone here knew it. Not that the truth mattered. They were looking for a spectacle, not facts. When the worst night of her life had come to pass, they’d stood on the sidelines as they did now, watching with horrified expressions while trying to mask their delight. Heiress to a family hotel fortune taken down a peg or two.
They wanted to trigger her into turning around. Snapping. Giving them more fodder for gossip. Though their words clawed against her skin, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
She was nearly at her mother’s chair—
“Shaheen is coming to the shaadi. Can you imagine?”
Hena tensed. Nasir’s mother? It was baseless gossip. It had to be. Irum being there was bad enough, but facing her missing fiancé’s mother after their last interaction? Her skin prickled at the thought.
One thing at a time.Right now, she needed to face her own mother.
Approaching Ammi, she saw the breathing tube in her nose. The oxygen tank by her side. She was in a wheelchair. Hena felt light-headed. So, this was real. This was happening. Her mother was dying.
