She was prepping for dinner, chopping up vegetables for a quick veggie and chicken stir fry. No one was home yet, except her father who always stayed back, she didn't know why and since there were a lot of other questions she wanted to ask as well, she always stopped because she thought, they were better off unanswered; every single time.
All she knew was, her father had stopped working because her grandfather had asked him. A very strange thing for her Baba to do as the money game was the only thing he was good at. It was sort of a gamble, not literally, but when he injected his money somewhere for the best possible returns, he had forgotten how to lose.
Though Hufaiz had told her that someone had deceived Baba in business, she didn't actually believe him. Maybe, it had become a habit even for her to always see her father win, more like, suck in money just as a frog sucks in a bee. Her father who had no time in the past due to work had now turned stingy and cranky even though he had loads of time to give to his family. All of them tried to not get into an argument with him over a petty issue or just simply, they avoided crossing tracks with him.
Riya thought sometimes that there had to be some knot in this whole situation, she knew she was missing on something, but she never dug up to find out what. She didn't want any more things that wore herself down.
She also didn't know whether she still held a grudge against him for marrying her off to Moutasim because it didn't matter now, that's what it is, nothing matters for too long. Her "Central Station" of grudge was gone and so was his family.
Moutasim's family had moved to Norway, ten days right after the incident. Ammar had found a job there and he had been planning to move for months, but when Moutasim's traumatic news came in, Kashmala wasn't in a stable condition to be left back. He took along his parents and Faarima, to put everything back and start fresh. They had said all of this over the phone, after packing their bags and moving continents away. They weren't to be blamed though, the trauma was too big to care about anything else and people already had big mouths to say things at the worse time to top it off.
She remembered how Moutasim, his death, and his family had become a talk of the town, it already was due to his "reputation", but it had gotten off limits when his sudden death was on news for twenty-four/seven. The mutual social circles her family and her aunt's belonged to, haunted for months.
Now, no one even remembered who he was or how his family was doing. Her aunt gave her dad a random call every few months, but other than that, it was silence. It had always been that way, even when Moutasim was there, though not always but for years there was a transparent bitterness after the court case.
Sometimes, she felt, for a seven hundred and thirty days of life span, things had changed so much like how they do over twenty years. At other times, she thought everything was just like it always had been and it was her who had been shown some reality check. It was overwhelming and confusing all at once.
Like, they were still in the same apartment, meant to be moving in a villa two years ago. It could most probably be because of the financial restraint, but she also knew well that her father received a handsome income from their family business which her Agha Jaan, uncle, and cousins ran. She never asked, just overheard her parents once.
Their home had felt empty when Hufaiz moved to London to pursue his degree in music and his mind was pretty much well planned to settle there and start a career with his boy band. Their mother was still on job as a professor, a little less social now as of her dementia; it was creeping in very slowly, dot by dot, something none of them wanted to digest, including herself.
Arshiya had taken up university when she finished with the Quran Institute. They had offered her to be a full-time teacher in the evening session to which she had heartily accepted. Riya barely saw her on weekdays because Arshiya would leave early in the morning for university and returned in the afternoons to go back to the institute in the evening when she'd be at work, only for them both to return home tired as hell and hit the bed after some dinner, all in their own timings.
Riya would be the first to say hello to the night and by the time her sister was back, she'd be fast asleep. This was their routine throughout the week, although thankfully, weekends were a whole lot lighter. There were only two things which hadn't moved an inch about Riya though; one was sleep. The other, of course, food.
She quickly cut the green and yellow peppers in julienne and threw it in the wok with the chicken that sizzled in the seasonings and herbs when she heard the door lock click. It would be her mom, she thought.
"Assalamoalikum!"
Nope, it was Arshiya to her amazement.
"Walikumassalam. How come you're home early?" She was slicing tomatoes while working up a pan for grilling tortillas to pull together a fajita wrap.
"I think you're late today," Arshiya said, giving her a sideway glance as she put her bag and books on the sofa in the living room.
Riya realized, she was about an hour late, she was possibly imprisoned by that earring, far too long in the car. A strange kind of emotion had gripped her heart, a kind she couldn't really justify to herself. Today, she was on cloud nine, but she didn't think anyone could tell that. It was under the surface and mixed with slight anxiety. She was thrown upwards into something she'd started to love; her career. On the other hand, a mountain of guilt had pushed her down, so down that, it was kind of taking over everything else that had been coming out so great.
"I've got something amazing to tell you, Riya!"
"Me too!" She exclaimed, her face finally started to show some hints of how elated she was.
"You first", they both chorused at the same time and giggled about it.
"Alright, I'm talking first," started Arshiya impatiently, "I was called into Dean's office today."
Riya gave a quick stir in the pan, wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and joined her on the dining table where she sat peeling a banana.
"He handed me a letter and made me so nervous, I thought I had failed in the mid-terms, but when I opened it, I couldn't believe what it was."
Riya shifted on the chair curiously, folding her arms, she urged, "Say it already, Arshiya!"
"They're offering me a scholarship in Turkey!" She squealed with laughter, got up and dragged Riya to her feet too.
She twirled her around continuously until they were in the middle of the living room and when Arshiya felt dizzy of too much happiness bubbling out of her, she stopped. That's when she noticed Riya's gloomy face, instead of what she had been expecting, there was a sudden change of expressions.
Arshiya should have known better, that place had given nightmares to Riya for months, "Hey, I didn't mean to-"
Riya held her hand, her lips stretching into a wide gaping grin. She instantly pulled her little sister into a bear hug, "When will you stop making me proud, Arshiya?"
When they let go after a moment of giggles and a tear or two, Arshiya cheered, "Your turn."
"I got promoted."
Arshiya squealed again and started jumping on the sofa. Riya pushed her to stop, but she pulled her up too and they both fell in a heap on to the fluffy cushions, laughing until their stomach hurt.
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The next morning, she left earlier than she was expected at work. On the way, she stopped at Mishkat's house, dropped the package at the door and rung the door bell, forgetting to take her finger off from it. When she made sure that someone was dragging their drowsy steps to get the door, she quickly got into her red Chevrolet Spark, reversed it and made a sharp turn to exit the lane. She saw Mishkat poking her sleepy head out of her bedroom window from the upper-floor and she swiftly raced towards the highway.
She had bought this car after she had saved up an entire year's earnings from last year, it wasn't still enough and now she had been paying the rest of the balance in installments. The feeling of possessing something with her own earned money was something out of the world. She treated her car like it was her baby, washed and maintained it all by herself.
Arshiya had often pointed out jokingly, that since Riya had lost all her trust with human connections, she had become absolutely a maniac, trying to find human-ly touch in her car or work. Arshiya's life had threatened to finish, once when she had seen Riya talking to her car, she had thought that she'd been possessed by a Jinn, ones those talk to things!
Smiling at the thought, she patted the steering wheel, "Good girl."
She loved talking to it like she'd talk and talk, but still, there would be no answers. This made fewer confusions and zero issues. Did that mean she needed someone who would only listen and say nothing?
She rolled down the windows as the car engine sung to the lone yet scarcely occupied busy highway roads. Riya relished the December roaring winds that twirled in her navy blue hijab, wrapped around her face to cover her hair. She sometimes missed how her long hair used to be left open to fly in the air.
She didn't know why she'd started covering, but it felt good. It gave her a feeling of a shell as if hidden, where people wouldn't judge her so easily; somewhere, she didn't have to show the world what she had. In the past, she didn't care what anybody thought of her, she still didn't. Now, the difference was, she cared only what her Lord thought of her and veiling herself a little was the best thing she had done, ever.
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There were five people seated around the conference table. Two male lawyers and one female secretary, all professionally postured, taking notes in their crisp suits. She was seated at the far end of the table, beside someone she had never seen in the office before.
The chief attorney, Mr. Hadad was pacing back and forth in front of the room, scribbling on the LED whiteboard to brief out the murder case to all of them. She had almost slept through the introductory session, where he had introduced them to one another since they'd be working as a team, but everyone knew everyone else already. Professional gigs, she rolled her eyes. Though, she had absolutely missed out the addressing of the unknown person, whom she guessed could be a police inspector.
Younus pressed some keys on the laptop, the LED displayed some pictures of the location where the murder took place. It was a cozy living room of a very expensive looking pent house. There were no signs of the dead body, just more pictures of the interior and exterior of the fancy home.
"A father has filed a lawsuit, against his son." He continued while he entered some data and on came a plaintiff's profile, "A seventy-year-old, originally from Al Awir suburb has claimed that his son murdered his wife; the son's biological mother. This was two years ago. The question is, why now? Why not right then?"
Each of them had something to say, an opinion of their own and soon, they all fell into a discussion. Riya didn't know what to say exactly, so she kept quiet. She pretty well got through the legalistic language they were using and she also made some notes.
Unintentionally, her gaze lingered over to the huge glass window just behind her, overlooking the city, with cars running like ants on the damped morning roads. Her sight caught a police car, crawling slowly on patrol.
Her mind was set back on rewind, to that awful day. Just when she had sat in the police car, she had noticed there was a person already seated to the other side, wearing casual clothes. She didn't remember his face, more like she hadn't even seen him properly as the moment was hyped up by Moutasim holding out a gun towards her, urging her to sit in the car.
To feel confused was nothing! Riya was terror-stricken, she didn't know what Moutasim wanted to do by sending her off to the police. Was he playing some sort of a game? Like maybe, turning her in to save his own self? After everything, she had still doubted him, till his very last breath. The remorse was piling up too high. There was no turning back. Not a single chance to make things right.
When she had reached the police station in a state of half consciousness after having seen the explosion, she somewhat remembered that she was given utmost care and time before she could speak sanely.
She was asked over and over again if she had been mistreated by the kidnappers or if she was hurt while escaping. She didn't know anything, not even remembered that she was kidnapped by Panther's gang from Swat.
They had shown her pictures of some most-wanted men in Turkey, who might have been the kidnappers according to them. There were some pictures she did recognize which were of the men she had seen stalking when she was on the bike in the rain or at least, she thought she did. Everything was a jumble, all she had wanted was to go home and never see anyone's face again. She had denied recognizing any of them, for no solid reason known to herself too.
Then, they had shown her Moutasim's picture.
"Is there any possible chance that this guy-"
"NO!" she had wailed and acted like a psychopath. She was instantly put in a process to be sent back to Dubai as soon as they could get her to go.
"Riya?"
"Huh?"
The room was empty, everyone had left except Mr. Younus, who stood, waving a sheet of paper on her face, "I hope you're serious about this job, Riya."
"I am, Sir."
"Didn't seem like it. Any questions about the lawsuit?"
She cleared her throat, "Yes. I mean no, Sir. I've got it."
"We'll see," he handed her a bundle of sheets, "Study the case thoroughly and you'll have to start your research in two days."
She was blank. All she knew was that a person had killed his very own mother and his father had filed a case against him.
There was a lot of studying to be done, she slapped her forehead and exited the conference room. In the lobby, over the reception, that unknown guy who had been in the meeting was leafing through a file and jotting down something on a notepad.
She stood there, trying to exercise her brain hard enough to remember if she had seen him before.
After some good five minutes, she did.
She had seen this man practically everywhere two years ago!