Disclaimer: A Thousand Splendid Suns and the characters are not mine
Author note: so it has been years since I updated but when I wrote this I decided I wanted to put it out there. I hope you guys enjoy it. I know very little about Islam, Afghanistan and its culture though so I hope everything in here is ok. I drew on the A Thousand Splendid Suns and a set of internet notes for it as my source.
Acceptance
Laila smiled as she walked through the door to her happy home. Warm, happy and full of laughter was how she would describe this house.
"Hello?" said the woman who was once again four months pregnant for the sixth time.
"Mammy!" a squeal came from the kitchen and a little cherubed faced girl followed it. Mariam was now four years old. When did that happen? Her mother mused.
"My love, how are you this evening?" she said as she put her arms about her baby girl.
"Good – Babi is making Daal for supper!"
"Is he now? What a lovely Babi you children do have," she said as she put her bag down and let her daughter lead her through to the kitchen where the rest of her ever growing family was.
"Evening my boys, Aziza," she said beaming as she laid eyes on Tariq.
"Hello Laila jo, sit down! It is nearly ready." Said her husband to her.
"Well there are my orders." She said as she took her seat at the table. To her right, her eldest boy gave her a grin.
Zalmai's puppy fat had fell off of him in the past few years. He had grown tall; his hair falling down passed his ears on to his neck, a smile often on his face. His cheeks were still ever flushed though, rosier than ever as he spent so much time out in the sunlight.
"Hello son," she said and got a nod in reply. "Good day?"
"Yes," he said as Tariq finished serving up the meal.
Across the table, locked in no doubt there latest conspiracy were her 'little boys' born within eighteen months of one another. The two of them were so close they might as well be twins. Omar and Mohammed, the troublesome two who made there parents and siblings laugh on a daily, near hourly basis.
"And what have you two been up too today?"
"Mammy," said Omar, his face screwing up in mock annoyance. "Me and Mo don't have too always be up to something..."
"Only near always, hey boys," said Aziza as she sat between the two of them and rolled her eyes. Perhaps it was because she had been her first born; maybe it was because she had been the one thing she had kept going for in the very first years of her first marriage; most likely it was because she had been so close to Mariam, but Aziza had retained the special place in her mother's heart that she had ruled over ever since she had learned she was pregnant with her. Her university girl had kept the smart head she had had since she had been a baby; her baby.
"Right, dinner is up kids," said Tariq as he passed the dinner plates about.
"This is gorgeous Tariq," said Laila as soon as she tasted the delicious food.
"Well, you know I live to please you," he said teasingly as he watched the two little boys screwed up faces in revolution.
Only Aziza was really old enough to remember what it was like to live in the middle of a marriage that was not as devoted as her parents was; Zalmai had always been sheltered to it to a degree. She adored seeing Tariq lavish her mother with the affection she deserved.
A knowing look passed between mother and daughter.
"So what have you rascals done at school today?"
"Maths," Mohammed told his mother. "It was boring Mammy!" Laila knew her son well enough to know that if it did not include running about with a ball then he was not going to enjoy it.
"Well it is important you work hard baby, so that you are clever when you are older and you can go to university like Aziza does and Zalmai will next year."
"If I pass my exams."
"You will. You're smart Zal, you'll pass." Aziza said with all the confidence and faith she had always had in him.
"Listen to Aziza," Laila urged her son. "We all agree with her, you are going to do us all proud."
We'll see, though Zalmai.
"What about you Mariam, what did you learn today?" Tariq asked with his eyes twinkling at his youngest.
A troubled look passed over her face. "Mariam?"
"I heard a new word today. I don't think it has a very nice meaning but... I... I don't think it was very nice," she said pensively in a manner which reminded her mother more than anything of Aziza when she had been four.
"Well, tell Mammy and Babi and we can explain it to you." Said Laila as she and Tariq looked at one another with concern and put her arm about her daughters shoulder. "It's ok my Mariam, tell me."
"Harami."
The mere word made Laila fell constrained. She was suddenly in another kitchen waiting for the insults about the food to begin. She saw another Mariam whose ribs were bruised. Her husband was there but he was not kind or tender. He was not Tariq.
"You're right Mariam. It is not a very nice word – it is a disgusting one in fact," she said with venom that surprised even her. When she thought of what that word had done to her dear, dear friend's life. "Your father will explain what it means, but I do not want to hear any of you children say it. Ever." She said. But after that no matter how good the food her husband had made her was, she found she had rather lost her appetite.
Later that evening when her three youngest were tucked up in bed, Laila sat up in the living room watching the TV with unseeing eyes. Her arm was wrapped tensely over her stomach where her new baby was growing by the minute. Tears stung her.
A hand squeezed hers and a head came down on her shoulder gently. Sighing her hand sort her baby's hair for comfort. "I am ok Zal," she said with a shaking voice. Her eldest son knew how emotional she got when she was with child. This was the fourth time he had seen her thus.
"What Mariam said..." he begun but his mother shook her head.
"She is just a baby. It is right that she asks when she is unsure. I want all of you to know that me and Babi are here for you, no matter what happens." She said as she kissed his forehead. "You can ask us anything... and we will strive to give you the truth... no matter the question."
A pause.
"Mammy..."
"Yes son..."
She knew what was coming.
"Baba jan is dead, isn't he?"
He had lifted his head up. And in that moment as she turned to her son she saw all that had been good about – the little that had been good about...
"Yes son, Baba jan died."
Lifted her hand she stroked his cheek. Zalmai's eyes filled with tears.
"But..." suddenly he shrunk before her eyes to that little boy he had been before they had left with Tariq. "You said he was going to come back."
Laila took a sharp intake of breathe. She had had to live by lying when she had lived with his father for Aziza's sake. Lying had become second nature to her when she had been young. But she did not think she was ever going to be able to get used to lying to her little boy.
"And he would have come back for you I know it. You were the sultan of your Baba's heart. But he died before he had got back to Kabul." She said ever so softly.
"Why did he not say good bye?"
"I don't know. He was angry that night... so much had been done and said... but none of it was your fault!" she said as she recalled what he had told his father about Tariq. She sighed and kissed his forehead once more. "Zal, listen to me. Sometimes people do things that others cannot figure out for one reason or another. All I want you to do, my son, is remember the happy times with Baba jan... not the bad. You had so many good times with him." she said as she continued to adoringly caress his cheek. "You know you are one of the sultans my heart too... now come here," she said as she adjusted herself to take her beloved son in her arms. It made no difference to her who had fathered him. Zalmai was her baby as much as any of the others... there was no distinction.
He stayed there wrapped in his mother's arms for a long time. Longer than he had for years. The need for her pulsated off of him. A mother could smell these things. Mariam had been able too. He needed his Mammy more than anything... unless it be his Baba jan. Gently she stroked circles on his back as if he was tiny still and needed winding.
"I love you my Zal... love you so much," she said a tear trickled down his face. A tear for him. Her baby boy.
It was like that Tariq and Aziza found them.
"Is he ok?" asked Tariq as soon as he saw the boy he considered his son in such a state.
She nodded as Tariq sat by on her other side. "He still needs me, sometimes you know." She sighed as she looked down on the boy who had gone to sleep. "And as much as I hate it, I think at times... he needs his..."
"Family, Laila jo. He needs his family." He said as his hands found the lads hair.
Aziza knelt down by them as her brother came too. His hands immediately found his cheeks and he wiped off the tracks of the tears he had cried. "Going to bed..." he muttered as he got up. He was embarrassed. It wasn't so much that he minded them seeing him crying. But not about his Baba. Baba jan was his memory which he continued to guard jealously unless he was with his mother.
"I'll be up to say Babaloo with you in a minute." Tariq called after him... really he was old enough to do it by himself now and yet Tariq enjoyed saying the children's prayers with them. Zalmai did not reply verbally but a gruff nod of the head told Tariq he would like that.
"How can he still miss him?" said Aziza once she was sure her brother was out of ear shot. The girl who was usually so understanding had a look of bewilderment on her face. She loved her brother but she could not get to grips with how he could still miss a man who had nearly kill her mother on more than one occasion.
"He was his father sweetheart." Said Laila simply. She had never questioned her sons love for the man who had sired him. "Off to bed please my love."
Aziza nodded, hugged her mother, kissed her father and turned to follow the path Zalmai had just taken up the stairs.
Laila lay back in Tariq familiar embrace. Sighing heavily she shut her eyes. She wished she could take the pain out of her elder children lives. She wished she could give them all that they wanted. But she couldn't.
"He is still heartbroken... I thought it would have mended by now."
"It has Laila." She looked up at her husband. "It has begun too. Acceptance. It's a gift you helped him gained. He can grieve now."
She nodded. "I hate Rasheed for what he did to us. But maybe in a perverse way he hurt Zalmai more than he would ever had hurt us, Aziza, Mariam and me. He had Zalmai's love. Utterly... devotedly... He never had that from the rest of us. And hurting someone with love by not being there... I think we both know how much that hurts."
Tariq agreed as the pain in the pit of his stomach came whenever he though about not being near Leila. "We do." Kissing his wife he stood up. "I should go to him. I'm tired myself, ready to turn in. Are you?"
"Yes I am. I'll be up in a moment." She said and he winked and headed for the door before pausing.
"You know there is one good thing about tonight..."
"What's that?"
"He isn't ever going to ask for Rasheed again." Said Tariq. There was a moment of sadness for him between them, but then Laila knew that chapter was finally closed. She was carry with her those parts of the chapter she loved; Mariam. She would leave the parts of her she did not want to remember behind her.
"That's true."
With Allah's help, in ten years time she would have forgotten that Rasheed had ever existed entirely.
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