The next morning I pulled Ella away and told her. I had to tell the Hannah too, to talk to Granny about her further plans and to Tasha about what she was going to do to me…but Ella had to come first. It was always Ella first.
“No.”
We were sitting on her bed, her hands in mine. She jerked them away as she said the word, almost as if my touch was poison, her little face going red at the edges. It was at times like these, of extreme anger or anguish, that I could almost see her mother in her—her real mother.
“But Ella,” I tried to reason, “you have to understand. I am not doing this for me. I am doing this for you. I cannot take care of you like this.”
For a moment, she just sat there, staring at me. Then she took back my hands, her expression earnest. “Mommy…” she started. As if fearing this wasn’t enough to appeal to me, she climbed into my lap, penguin pyjamas and all, and grabbed both sides of my face with her pudgy little hands. “Everybody is here, Mommy. School is here.”
I almost smiled. Trust her to try that. “I know,” I said. “But school can be there too.” I gathered her to me and placed my chin on her head. Her little heart beat in rhythm with mine. “I am not saying it won’t be different, Ella. I am not saying it won’t be difficult, very difficult. But I need this. I need to know how my family is. And you will have to come with me. You can meet my parents. Don’t you want to know my parents?”
She twisted her head to look up at me. “I do, Mommy, I do. I want to so very much. And your sister and you brothers too.”
“Then,” I said, “you understand why we have to go? You see why it is important?”
She was silent for a moment. “I want to go, Mommy.” Her eyes were so big they made my head hurt. “But not forever. This is my home.”
I sighed. This is as hard as I had thought, maybe even harder. “Sweetie—”
“Tasha and Granny will be here.”
“I don’t know about Granny, baby,” I said. “Maybe she will want to come with us, or maybe not. Regardless, it will be hard for her. But yes, Tasha will be here. She will come visit us, of course.”
“Christopher and Clara will be h-here.” Her eyes were starting to fill up.
My throat hurt. “I know.”
“Alex will be here.” The tears started to fall.
I pulled her close again, wrapping my arms around her tiny body so that I didn’t have to see her face. “I know,” I said. My voice came out hard.
She was starting to shake. “M-mommy…” she said, and that one word had the power to knock me over like a ten-tonne boulder. I didn’t say anything.
“Mommy, why are you doing this?” she asked after some time, now crying in earnest, her tears wetting my shirtfront. I stroked her hair.
Suddenly she pulled herself out of my arms so fast I couldn’t help but let her go. She stumbled a little standing up, her hair dishevelled and her eyes red. The look she gave me could have turned water to stone. She ran out the door.
I stayed where I was, looking after her and wondering when everything had gotten so messed up.
***
Pulling the afghan over Ella’s shoulders, I rubbed a curl off her pale, wet cheek. My touch caused her face to crinkle.
I took a deep breath and got off the couch, feeling heavy limbed and unimaginably tired.
“Can’t sleep?” a voice asked. I turned to find Alexander drifting into the living room on his crutches. He was wearing flannel bottoms and a bathing robe over no shirt. I was starting to get more comfortable with the sight than I cared to admit.
It had been only a day since out last talk, but he seemed to be everywhere now. Whenever I turned my head, there he was, standing in a corner or sitting on the sofa, almost as if unseen forces were pushing us together for unimaginably malicious outcomes. As if they knew nothing was resolved and they couldn’t let it go on like that.
Yet every time there had been someone else in the room, Granny or Clara or the girls, and fighting with him before people already angry with me just didn’t hold that much appeal. So we had stayed silent, skirting each other like a hunter might his prey, eyeing for potential weaknesses that could be explored.
I knew that this arrangement couldn’t have lasted for long, but I really wished it hadn’t been so soon.
“Ella just went under,” I said, rubbing my head. “I was going to bed now.”
“I am getting myself some warm milk,” he said. “Do you want some?”
I lifted my head, feeling an irrational laugh bubbling in my throat. The tiredness was catching up. “Warm milk,” I said. “This is what I will miss most about this place. The difference. I mean, walk milk? Seriously?”
He frowned, stopping behind the kitchen counter with a mug in his hand. “What’s wrong with warm milk?”
I sat on the sofa again. “Nothing’s wrong with it,” I said, throwing my head back. “Back home nobody drank milk to calm themselves. Drinking milk was a chore, something you did when you mother held a rolling pin to your head. Besides, the smell of milk makes me gag.”
He snorted. The mug clicked against the counter. “Did it ever occur to you that you people might have been totally mad?”
I smiled. “Many times.”
He sighed. We fell silent.
After a moment, he said, voice soft: “Has she been crying?”
Without looking, I rested a hand on Ella’s head, stroking the mass of red curls. “She is still very much against the idea of leaving.”
He didn’t say anything. The refrigerator door was pulled open.
“What,” I said, looking teasingly up at him, “no pearls of wisdom today? No telling me that this is crazy, that this is wrong?”
He shut the door and took excruciating care in placing the milk bottle on the marble countertop. “I don’t have anything else to say.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t think my heart could break any further, but it did. It is all my doing, I thought. All of it. “You will give up?” I asked.
“You did,” he said simply.
“I have my reasons.”
“So have I.”
This time I got up and strode to the kitchen. “Really?” I asked, depositing myself on a stool. I felt drunk, euphoric and despairing all at the same time. “What are your reasons?”
He had already filled the mug. His moves practical and methodic—uncaring, foreign—he turned to place it in the microwave. “You have never told me yours,” he said. “Why should I?” Setting the timer, he ran his hands through his hair and leaned against the counter, watching me. “Besides, there’s nothing to say. I have nothing.”
“I told you my reasons,” I said. There was a magical quality to the air. It didn’t escape my notice that it had been right here, on this kitchen counter, that I had told him about Asim. We hadn’t spoken a word since. And now, again right here, with the house silent and unmoving around us, the night full of false promises and hopeless hope, I couldn’t seem to let it go. “You know my reasons.”
He laughed, the sound bitter. “Please tell me them again. I must have forgotten. I can’t get enough of your stupidity, it would seem.”
His harsh words couldn’t reach me today. My heart was a stone in my chest, my mind shut down and silent. I was impervious. Yet I needed him to understand. “Asim has the money. He’s from the country. He’s the perfect choice.”
“You don’t even like him,” he said.
I shook my head. “That’s beside the point—”
“Isn’t that the whole point?” he asked. “You won’t be happy with him. The girls wouldn’t be happy. This obsession of yours to get home will make you and the people you care about miserable.” The microwave dinged and was duly ignored. “You will ruin their lives. You will ruin his life. And what will you get in return?”
I looked up. “I will ruin his life?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
He chuckled. “You are not that naïve,” he said. “Maybe absolutely crazy, but not that naïve.”
I didn’t comment. Maybe I did know what he meant. “He will give me a name. He will make me someone.”
“Is that really necessary?” he asked. I could feel him getting worked up, his temper rising. “You don’t need a man to live your life! I thought you of all people would know that.”
My lips twisted. “I know I don’t need a man,” I said. “I will never need a man, ever. But you don’t get it. You never will. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“The person I actually want will never make me something. And I refuse to wait for him to figure it out, to decide if he wants to do it or not.” Suddenly, everything was too much. It was so funny, saying these things. The words seemed strange and distant, not mine at all. I wasn’t saying them. Someone else, someone who wasn’t me, was saying them. I pushed my hands into my hair and folded them into fists, the strands tightening against my fingers and straining against my scalp. “I will not give way to uncertainty. It will kill me, Alex, worrying about if we will make it or not. I will die. I want it to stop. I want everything to stop. I want to feel whole again, really soon. I want—I don’t know what I want!”
“This is not the only way. Marrying Asim is not the only way.”
“I am fucked up in the head!” I exploded. All of a sudden I was out of the chair, my face hot and my hands shaking. “You think everything that has happened with me is just going to go away? You think this is a fairy tale where you, or someone else, can sing a song and make it all better?” I laughed, the sound acidic. It burrowed in my ears and brought darkness to the edges of my eyes. “I will never be better. It will never be over for me. Never.
“But you love saying it, don’t you?” I continued, gripping the counter with white knuckled fingers and leaning close. “You will ruin everyone’s life,” I mimicked. “Your obsession, your craziness—that’s the point! I am crazy. You think I am capable of bringing these girls up without help? I am never going to get better. I am never going to be normal. And I accept that.” I placed a hand on my chest. “I accept I will not be the same again. But my girl”—pointing at where Ella lay fast asleep—“this is not her fault. Why should she suffer for my past? Why should she not have everything because I didn’t?”
“What are you saying, Zara?” he asked. His voice was so soft it rose only for a second before dying in the still room.
But I heard it. “I will be a mother who pulls her daughter back from everything, Alexander,” I said, deflated. My shoulders slumped and my head hung heavy. “I will tell her to not go outside ever because monsters lurk around the corner. I will tie her up as she grows, not giving her space to breath, because I want to keep her safe. I will clip her wings. I will kill her.”
“No you wouldn’t—”
I looked up. “Tell me in all honesty that I wouldn’t.” I gave him a moment but, when no answer came forth, smiled a sad smile. “You know I will. You know how I do things. Didn’t I ask you to not take her out? Don’t I always stop them from doing this, from doing that…from doing everything? I am not only a cautious mother, Alex, I am obsessive. I will smother them.”
“Zara—”
“I need help to raise them. I need someone else to hold me in check, to keep me from letting my past murder their future. It’s not that I need a man to live, Alex. I need a family. I need a family so that my daughters can live.”
He was silent for a long moment. My head was starting to throb. Then he pulled away from the counter. The crutches made muffled clicks with each step he took. Before long he was on the other side of the counter, directly opposite. He grabbed my hand. “Marrying Asim is not the only way,” he said again.
I could feel anger rise in my throat. Why wouldn’t he understand?
“We will find a way,” he said. “You will find a way. You belong here, Zara. The girls belong here. With—”
“With you?” I asked. The words felt like a whip crack. He lifted his head, his expression hard. What was wrong with the two of us? “With you as what, Alex? Your friend? We are way past that, as we are both sane enough to see. And I will not be one of your many girls.”
“You are not one of my many girls,” he said, voice low. A warning.
“So what do you have in mind? I don’t have time. I am already on the edge as it is. I don’t date. I don’t do anything you consider normal. I don’t—”
“Shut up,” he said, closing his eyes.
Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. “What do you want from me?” I asked, voice breaking. My fingers wrapped around his on their own accord, wanting to hold on when I knew I should let go. “Don’t do this to me, Alex, please don’t. It hurts.” I had started this conversation, I knew. This was my fault. It was a mistake. A tear fell on out joined hands. “This is what I am going away from. I can’t afford to wait. I can’t afford what that will do to me. I can’t afford what you will do to me.”
He pulled his hand away.
“Alex…” I said, the name falling off my lips like a stone, heavy with anguish. I watched him grip his crutches harder and turn. “Alex, listen to me,” I said, bringing my hands to my chest. “Please listen to me…”
He didn’t respond, just kept walking. I couldn’t see his face now, couldn’t see the expression in his eyes or the set of his mouth.
And then he turned the corner to his study and vanished.
Just like that.
I sat in my stool for half a minute, feeling hollow and as empty as a newly dug grave. Then I got to my feet, eyes still on the spot where he had been moments ago. No, I thought, feeling my tears stop. This is not how everything will end. This is not how I will let it all end.
It had to end, I knew. Everything had to end. But not like this. Not in silence and hatred. Not in such resentment.
I was running before I even realised it. The door to the study, half open, materialised in front of my face, but didn’t stay for long. I pushed it open with all my strength. It swung in, bouncing against the wall on the right.
“Alex,” I said, coming to a stop in front of his desk, breathing hard I didn’t know why. “Alex please—”
He was standing on the other side of the table, rooting in the drawers. On hearing the door open, he had lifted his head for just a moment, glanced at me, then went back to what he was doing.
“Talk to me…” I said.
Finding what he wanted, he wrapped his hand around it, using his other to slide the drawer shut.
“Don’t let it end this way,” I begged.
He didn’t look at me. Instead, with his free hand on the glass topped table, he used the support to manoeuvre around.
I buried my face in my hands, tears flowing unchecked. “Talk to me…” I said, my voice cracking. “I am sorry I am so m-messed up. I can’t h-help it. I am so sorry I am doing this. I am sorr—”
Cool fingers touched my hand. “Zara,” he said. “Look up.”
I lifted my head, eyes blurry, nose running. “Don’t hate me, Alex,” I was saying. “Don’t hate—”
I trailed off. Eyes clearing, finally, I noticed what he was holding up.
“You will never be one of my many girls,” he said.
The red velvet box was so small his hand almost swallowed it whole. And in its plush golden depths sat the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was wrought in platinum, the sheen almost too bright. A vane snaked around the circlet in a single tendril, intricately designed so as to look painfully real. And on top spread a fragile little rose, the petals so thin I imagined seeing right through them.
In the middle of the blossom sat a single diamond. It wasn’t very big, perhaps only as large as a water drop, but in the middle of the flower it blinked like an eye, catching the light and playing with it till I felt mesmerised, hypnotised.
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t look up.
“This was a week ago,” he said. I could still hear the crack of anger in his tone, buried under the words but still there.
I blinked multiple times to get my eyes clear. His face swam for a moment before coming into focus. I couldn’t read his expression. “What are you saying?” I didn’t dare touch the ring.
His expression tightened. Propped by the edge of the table, he leaned closer. “You would never give it a chance. But I was ready to. Everything I wanted was for you to just give it a chance!”
“Why?” I asked, feeling weak. I couldn’t remember if I had legs or not, or how they could support my weight at all.
“Because I saw what you couldn’t. Because I knew that—” He stopped, then huffed loudly. His fingers closed around the ring, the box clicking shut. A strangled breath escaped me. “I don’t even know what I am saying.” He shook his head. “You have given up. You are so ready to lose that I couldn’t possibly—”
My hand shot forward, grabbing the edge of his robe. The thick material folded under my hand. I pulled him forward. Then, feeling a maddening sense of power rush through my body, giddiness consume my brain and lightness carry my heart away, I whispered, “Ask me.”
He was silent for a long moment. Then his eyes flashed. This was a game, like our relationship had always been. Would always be. It was a battle of wills, to subdue the other person, to come out victorious. He intended to win. “Marry me,” he said.
All blood rushed to my face. I exhaled loudly, feeling tears pop in my eyes. Then I shook my head. “Not like that, pretty boy,” I said, stroking his cheek. “Not like that.”
His eyebrows dipped.
I let go of his collar and stepped back. “Do it properly. Get down on your knees, hold the ring out. Tell me why, then ask me.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. He let out an incredulous chuckle. “You are joking.”
I continued to step back till a bookcase stopped my retreat. “No I am not,” I said. “Do it, Mr. Rodwell. I want to see you do it.”
The smile was still there, now growing bigger and bigger. His eyes glinted, testing my resolve. I stared back, stubborn.
And then, before my very eyes, he sank to his knees. The single crutch slipped from his right hand. He couldn’t hold his weight on the knee of his injured leg, so used the table yet again to provide support.
His eyes said, This is my round. I win.
“Zara Mahal,” he started, his voice strong and true. I swallowed. “I haven’t known you for long. It’s barely been a month and we rarely had two good words for each other.” Moonlight streaming through the window framed his face, touching his skin in seductive strokes. The smile on his lips was dizzyingly bright. “But I know, Zara. Now, I know.” His eyes sparkled. “When I saw your face bruised after than bastard Zayn touched you, I felt such anger I could have killed him. But I ignored that feeling. I said to myself that it was nothing. Then you disappeared and, even though the children were after you and nothing would happen, I still couldn’t stop myself from feeling like I would die. Yet I ignored that feeling, refused to give it a name.
“But, Zara,” he continued, eyes wide and earnest, “when you came to see me in the hospital and let your guide done for once, I knew. I knew there was nothing else this could be. I stayed silent and didn’t say anything, not knowing how to, not wanting you to run away. I don’t know why I bought this ring, I don’t know why I did anything that I did or tried to do…but I know this. I know this.”
I pressed both hands to my mouth. I felt as if I would evaporate.
He held out the ring. “Zara Mahal, you are as different from the other girls I know as can be. Yet you hurt my heart. You make me feel like a little lesser of the bastard I know I am. You make me feel whole. You make it difficult to breath, but you are the reason I do it the first place. You are not normal, and that’s the truth. But I am not either. And I love you as you are.” I gasped. “I love you, Zara. Will you marry me?”
I blubbered something. He cocked his head, grinning now. “What was that?” he asked.
I removed my hands from my face. “No.”
His smile dimmed, then vanished. “What?” he choked.
I let a second pass, then two. Then, tears still falling, I succumbed to hysterical laughter. “Y-yes, I will marry you,” I said, laying a hand on my chest as I felt the organ inside thrash like a fish out of water. “I w-win!”
Alexander let loose a frightening growl. An actual growl! He forced himself to his feet. “You—”
I stepped forward and lay a hand on his lips. He shut up.
With slightly trembling fingers he pulled the ring out of the box, throwing the latter away—I made a mental note to rescue it as soon as was possible. In silence, as if the moment was too poignant to be broken by simple words, he lifted my left hand and placed his band on my ring finger. I felt its weight as deep as my heart.
“No more games,” he said, lifting a hand to my cheek. “No more misunderstanding and mystery. This is it.”
I leaned into his touch. “This is it.”
And then he tilted his head close, ever so slowly, and placed his lips on mine.
The world exploded into a million pieces. The floor slipped from under my feet and the roof flew off to expose us to the heaven’s searching eyes. His lips were neither soft nor hard, not giving nor demanding. I didn’t know what they were, for I wasn’t in this world anymore.
I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I wanted to stay.
Because I was home.
It might have gone on for a million years or it might have been two second. When he pulled away, I felt our bubble pop; yet, not all the way, for I placed my cheek on his chest and breathed in his clean scent.
He placed a hand on the back of my head, sighing as if content. Then he gently lifted my head up. His eyes in the darkness were shining. “What are you going to tell Asim?” he asked. "Doesn't seem too fair that I took his bride."
I lay my head back on his beating heart.
“He will understand. He thinks I am a terrible cook anyway.”